SANTA     CRUZ 


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Gift  of 

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Mrs.   Mary  Anne  Whipple  & 

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SANTA     CRUZ 


THE  CERTAIN  HOUR 


BOOKS  by  MR.  CABELL 

Biography: 

BEYOND  LIFK 
FIGURES  OF  EARTH 
DOMNEI 
CHIVALRY 

JURGEN 

THE  LINE  OF  LOVE 

GALLANTRY 

THE  CERTAIN  HOUR 

THE  CORDS  OK  VANITY 

FROM  THE  HIDDEN  WAY 

THE  RIVET  IN  .GRAXDKATJIKS'S   XECK 

THE  EAGLE'S  SHADOW 

THE  CREAM  OK  THE  JEST 


BRANCH  OK  ABIXGDON 

BRANCHIANA 

THE  .MAJORS  AND  THEIR  MARRIAGES 


THE 
CERTAIN  HOUR 

(Dizain  des  Po'etes) 


By 
JAMES  BRANCH  CABELL 


"Criticism,  whatever  may  be  its  pretensions,  never 
does  more  than  to  denne  the  impression  which 
is  made  upon  it  at  a  certain  moment  by  a  work 
wherein  the  writer  himself  noted  the  impression 
of  the  world  which  he  received  at  a  certain  hour." 


NEW  YORK 

ROBERT  M.  McBRIDE  fef  COMPANY 
1920 


Copyright,  1916,  by  Robert  M.  McBride  &  Co. 

Copyright,  1915,  by  McBride,  Nast  &  Co. 

Copyright,  1914,  by  the  Sewanee  Review  Quarterly 

Copyright.  1913,  by  John  Adams  Thayer  Corporation 

Copyright,  1912,  by  Argonaut  Publishing  Company 

Copyright,  1911,  by  Red  Book  Corporation 

Copyright,  1909,  by  Harper  and  Brothers 


TO 

ROBERT  GAMBLE  CABELL  II 
In  Dedication  of  The  Certain  Hour 

Sad  hours  and  glad  hours,  and  all  hours,  pass  over; 
One  thing  unshaken  stays: 

Life,  that  hath  Death  for  spouse,  hath  Chance  for  lover; 
Whereby  decays 

Each  thing  save  one  thing: — mid  this  strife  diurnal 
Of  hourly  change  begot, 
Love  that  is  God-born,  bides  as  God  eternal, 
And  changes  not; — 

Nor  means  a  tinseled  dream  pursuing  lovers 
Find  altered  by-and-bye, 
When,  with  possession,  time  anon  discovers 
Trapped  dreams  must  die, — 

For  he  that  visions  God,  of  mankind  gathers 
One  manlike  trait  alone, 
And  reverently  imputes  to  Him  a  father's 
Love  for  his  son. 


CONTENTS 

"Ballad  of  the  Double-Soul"     .        .        .        .'        9 

AUCTORIAL  INDUCTION n 

BELHS  CAVALIERS 35 

BALTHAZAR'S  DAUGHTER  .  .  .  .  .61 
JUDITH'S  CREED  ;  .  .  .  85 

CONCERNING  CORINNA 105 

OLIVIA'S  POTTAGE    .        .        .        .        .        .125 

A  BROWN  WOMAN 147 

PRO  HONORIA   .        ...        .        .        .     169 

THE  IRRESISTIBLE  OGLE 189 

A  PRINCESS  OF  GRUB  STREET  .  .  .  .  209 
THE  LADY  OF  ALL  OUR  DREAMS  .  .  ,  233 
"Ballad  of  Plagiary"  .  .  .  .  .251 


"Soe  the  x  Ymages  which  Dom  Manuel  made  to 
be  a  Mockerie  for  the  Ymage  Makers  were  by 
Queene  Freydis  pryuyly  conueyed  awaye  to  sortie 
a  diuerse  Purporte.  .  .  .  They  of  Poictesme  nar- 
rate that  Queene  Freydis  thereafter  did  giue  Lyfe 
to  these  muddie  Yniages,  eche  at  a  certayne  Houre, 
and  that  her  sotyll  scyaunce  of  Egromancy  sett 
these  x  to  Hue  among  Mans  Kind,  with  all  which 
of  such  a  State  aperteyneth ;  to  grete  Hurtes  and 
Marines,  by  Cause  that  these  x  Ymages  were 
unlyke  to  Beings  naturallie  conceyued,  in  so  much 
that  they  hadde  inside  them  Sparkes  and  smalle 
Flamings  of  the  Fyer  of  Audela." 

— The  Terrible  and  Marvellous  History  of 
Manuel  Pig-Tender  That  Afterwards 
Was  Named  Manuel  the  Redeemer. 


BALLAD  OF  THE  DOUBLE-SOUL 


"Les  Dieux,  qui  trop  aiment  ses  face  ties  cruelles 

PAUL  VERVILLE. 


In  the  beginning  the  Gods  made  man,  and  fashioned  the 

sky  and  the  sea, 
And  the  earth's  fair  face  for  man's  dwelling-place,  and 

this  was  the  Gods'  decree: — 

"Lo,  We  have  given  to  man  five  wits :  he  discerneth  folly 

and  sin; 
He  is  swift  to  deride  all  the  world  outside,  and  blind  to 

the  world  within: 

"So  that  man  may  make  sport  and  amuse  Us,  in  battling 

for  phrases  or  pelf, 
Now  that  each  may  know  what  forebodeth  woe  to  his 

neighbor,  and  not  to  himself." 

Yet  some  have  the  Gods  forgotten, — or  is  it  that  subtler 

mirth 
The  Gods  extort  of  a  certain  sort  of  folk  that  cumber 

the  earth? 

For  this  is  the  song  of  the  double-soul,  distortedly  two 
in  onet — 

9 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Of  the  wearied  eyes  that  still  beheld  the  fruit  ere  the  seed 

be  sown, 
And  derive  affright  for  the  nearing  night  from  the  light 

of  the  noontide  sun. 

For  one  that  with  hope  in  the  morning  set  forth,  and 

knew  never  a  fear, 
They  have  linked  with  another  whom  omens  bother ;  and 

he  whispers  in  one's  ear. 

And  one  is  fain  to  be  climbing  where  only  angels  have 

trod, 
But  is  fettered  and  tied  to  another's  side  who  fears  that 

it  might  look  odd. 

And  one  would  worship  a  woman  whom  all  perfections 

dower, 
But  the  other  smiles  at  transparent  wiles ;  and  he  quotes 

from  Schopenhauer. 

Thus  two  by  two  we  wrangle  and  blunder  about  the 

earth, 
And  that  body  we  share  we  may  not  spare ;  but  the  Gods 

have  need  of  mirth. 

So  this  is  the  song  of  the  double-soul,  distortedly  two 

in  one, — 
Of  the  wearied  eyes  that  still  behold  the  fruit  ere  the  seed 

be  sown, 
And  derive  affright  for  the  nearing  night  from  the  light 

of  the  noontide  sun. 


10 


AUCTORIAL  INDUCTION 


"These  questions,  so  long  as  they  remain  with  the 
Muses,  may  very  well  be  unaccompanied  with  severity,  for 
where  there  is  no  other  end  of  contemplation  and  inquiry 
but  that  of  pastime  alone,  the  understanding  is  not  op- 
pressed; but  after  the  Muses  have  given  over  their  riddles 
to  Sphinx, — that  is,  to  practise,  which  urges  and  impels  to 
action,  choice  and  determination, — then  it  is  that  they 
become  torturing,  severe  and  trying/' 


From  the  dawn  of  the  day  to  the  dusk  he  toiled, 
Shaping  fanciful  playthings,  with  tireless  hands, — 
Useless  trumpery  toys;  and,  with  vaulting  heart, 
Gave  them  unto  all  peoples,  who  mocked  at  him, 
Trampled  on  them,  and  soiled  them,  and  went  their  way. 

Then  he  toiled  from  the  morn  to  the  dusk  again, 
Gave  his  gimcracks  to  peoples  who  mocked  at  him, 
Trampled  on  them,  deriding,  and  went  their  way. 

Thus  he  labors,  and  loudly  they  jeer  at  him ; — 
That  is,  when  they  remember  he  still  exists. 

Who,  you  ask,  is  this  fellow? — What  matter  names? 
He  is  only  a  scribbler  who  is  content. 


AUCTORIAL  INDUCTION 


WHICH  (AFTER  SOME  BRIEF  DISCOURSE  OF  FIRES  AND 
FRYING-PANS)  ELUCIDATES  THE  INEXPEDIENCY  OF 
PUBLISHING  THIS  BOOK,  AS  WELL  AS  THE  NECESSITY 
OF  WRITING  IT!  AND  THENCE  PASSES  TO  A  MODEST 
DEFENSE  OF  MORE  VITAL  THEMES. 

THE  desire  to  write  perfectly  of  beautiful  hap- 
penings is,  as  the  saying  runs,  old  as  the 
hills — and  as  immortal.  Questionless,  there 
was  many  a  serviceable  brick  wasted  in  Nineveh  be- 
cause finicky  persons  must  needs  be  deleting  here  and 
there  a  phrase  in  favor  of  its  cuneatic  synonym;  and 
it  is  not  improbable  that  when  the  outworn  sun  ex- 
pires in  clinkers  its  final  ray  will  gild  such  zealots 
tinkering  with  their  "style/*  Some  few  there  must 
be  in  every  age  and  every  land  of  whom  life  claims 
nothing  very  insistently  save  that  they  write  perfectly 
of  beautiful  happenings. 

Yet,  that  the  work  of  a  man  of  letters  is  almost 
always  a  congenial  product  of  his  day  and  environ- 
ment, is  a  contention  as  lacking  in  novelty  as  it  is  in 

13 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


the  need  of  any  upholding  here.  Nor  is  the  rational- 
ity of  that  axiom  far  to  seek;  for  a  man  of  genuine 
literary  genius,  since  he  possesses  a  temperament 
whose  susceptibilities  are  of  wider  area  than  those 
of  any  other,  is  inevitably  of  all  people  the  one  most 
variously  affected  by  his  surroundings.  And  it  is  he, 
in  consequence,  who  of  all  people  most  faithfully  and 
compactly  exhibits  the  impress  of  his  times  and  his 
times'  tendencies,  not  merely  in  his  writings — where 
it  conceivably  might  be  just  predetermined  affectation 
— but  in  his  personality. 

Such  being  the  assumption  upon  which  this  volume 
is  builded,  it  appears  only  equitable  for  the  architect 
frankly  to  indicate  his  cornerstone.  Hereinafter  you 
have  an  attempt  to  depict  a  special  temperament — one 
in  essence  "literary" — as  very  variously  molded  by 
diverse  eras  and  as  responding  in  proportion  with  its 
ability  to  the  demands  of  a  certain  hour. 

In  proportion  with  its  ability,  be  it  repeated,  since 
its  ability  is  singularly  hampered.  For,  apart  from 
any  ticklish  temporal  considerations,  be  it  remem- 
bered, life  is  always  claiming  of  this  temperament's 
possessor  that  he  write  perfectly  of  beautiful  haj>- 
penings. 

To  disregard  this  vital  longing,  and  flatly  to  stifle 
the  innate  striving  toward  artistic  creation,  is  to  be- 
come (as  with  Wycherley  and  Sheridan)  a  man  who 
waives,  however  laughingly,  his  sole  apology  for  ex- 
istence. The  proceeding  is  paltry  enough,  in  all  con- 
science; and  yet,  upon  the  other  side,  there  is  much 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


positive  danger  in  giving  to  the  instinct  a  loose  rein. 
For  in  that  event  the  familiar  circumstances  of  sedate 
and  wholesome  living  cannot  but  seem,  like  paintings 
viewed  too  near,  to  lose  in  gusto  and  winsomeness. 
Desire,  perhaps  a  craving  hunger,  awakens  for  the 
impossible.  No  emotion,  whatever  be  its  sincerity, 
is  endured  without  a  side-glance  toward  its  capabili- 
ties for  being  written  about.  The  world,  in  short, 
inclines  to  appear  an  ill-lit  mine,  wherein  one  quar- 
ries gingerly  amidst  an  abiding  loneliness  (as  with 
Pope  and  UfTord  and  Sire  Raimbaut) — and  wherein 
one  very  often  is  allured  into  unsavory  alleys  (as  with 
Herrick  and  Alessandro  de  Medici) — in  search  of  that 
raw  material  which  loving  labor  will  transshape  into 
comeliness. 

Such,  if  it  be  allowed  to  shift  the  metaphor,  are 
the  treacherous  by-paths  of  that  admirably  policed 
highway  whereon  the  well-groomed  and  well-bitted 
Pegasi  of  Vanderhoffen  and  Charteris  (in  his  later 
manner)  trot  stolidly  and  safely  toward  oblivion. 
And  the  result  of  wandering  afield  is  of  necessity  a 
tragedy,  in  that  the  deviator's  life,  if  not  as  an  artist's 
quite  certainly  as  a  human  being's,  must  in  the  out- 
come be  adjudged  a  failure. 

Hereinafter,  then,  you  have  an  attempt  to  depict  a 
special  temperament — one  in  essence  "literary" — as 
very  variously  molded  by  diverse  eras  and  as  respond- 
ing in  proportion  with  its  ability  to  the  demands  of  a 
certain  hour. 


II 


And,  this  much  said,  it  is  permissible  to  hope,  at 
least,  that  here  and  there  some  reader  may  be  found 
not  wholly  blind  to  this  book's  goal,  whatever  be  his 
opinion  as  to  this  book's  success  in  reaching  it.  Yet 
rrany  honest  souls  there  be  among  us  average-novel- 
readers  in  whose  eyes  this  volume  must  rest  content 
to  figure  as  a  collection  of  short  stories  having  naught 
in  common  beyond  the  feature  that  each  deals  with 
the  affaires  du  cceur  of  a  poet. 

Such  must  always  be  the  book's  interpretation  by 
mental  indolence.  The  fact  is  incontestable;  and  this 
fact  in  itself  may  be  taken  as  sufficient  to  establish 
the  inexpediency  of  publishing  The  Certain  Hour. 
For  that  "people  will  not  buy  a  volume  of  short 
stories"  is  notorious  to  all  publishers.  To  offset  the 
axiom  there  are  no  doubt  incongruous  phenomena — 
ranging  from  the  continued  popularity  of  the  Bible  to 
the  present  general  esteem  of  Mr.  Kipling,  and  em- 
bracing the  rather  unaccountable  vogue  of  "O. 
Henry"; — but,  none  the  less,  the  superstition  has  its 
force. 

Here  intervenes  the  multifariousness  of  man, 
pointed  out  somewhere  by  Mr.  Gilbert  Chesterton, 
16 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


which  enables  the  individual  to  be  at  once  a  vegetarian, 
a  golfer,  a  vestryman,  a  blond,  a  mammal,  a  Democrat, 
and  an  immortal  spirit.  As  a  rational  person,  one 
may  debonairly  consider  The  Certain  Hour  possesses 
as  large  license  to  look  like  a  volume  of  short  stories 
as,  say,  a  backgammon-board  has  to  its  customary 
guise  of  a  two-volume  history;  but  as  an  average- 
novel-reader,  one  must  vote  otherwise.  As  an  aver- 
age-novel-reader, one  must  condemn  the  very  book 
which,  as  a  seasoned  scribbler,  one  was  moved  to 
write  through  long  consideration  of  the  drama  already 
suggested — that  immemorial  drama  of  the  desire  to 
write  perfectly  of  beautiful  happenings,  and  the  ob- 
scure martyrdom  to  which  this  desire  solicits  its 
possessor. 

Now,  clearly,  the  struggle  of  a  special  tempera- 
ment with  a  fixed  force  does  not  forthwith  begin 
another  story  when  the  locale  of  combat  shifts.  The 
case  is,  rather,  as  when — with  certainly  an  intervening 
change  of  apparel — Pompey  fights  Caesar  at  both 
Dyrrachium  and  Pharsalus,  or  as  when  General  Grant 
successively  encounters  General  Lee  at  the  Wilderness, 
Spottsylvania,  Cold  Harbor  and  Appomattox.  The 
combatants  remain  unchanged,  the  question  at  issue 
is  the  same,  the  tragedy  has  continuity.  And  even 
so,  from  the  time  of  Sire  Raimbaut  to  that  of  John 
Charteris  has  a  special  temperament  heart-hungrily 
confronted  an  ageless  problem:  at  what  cost  now,  in 
this  fleet  hour  of  my  vigor,  may  one  write  perfectly 
of  beautiful  happenings? 

17 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


Thus  logic  urges,  with  pathetic  futility,  inasmuch 
as  we  average-novel-readers  are  profoundly  indif- 
ferent to  both  logic  and  good  writing.  And  always 
the  fact  remains  that  to  the  mentally  indolent  this 
book  may  well  seem  a  volume  of  disconnected  short 
stories.  All  of  us  being  more  or  less  mentally  indo- 
lent, this  possibility  constitutes  a  dire  fault. 

Three  other  damning  objections  will  readily  obtrude 
themselves :  The  Certain  Hour  deals  with  past  epochs 
— beginning  before  the  introduction  of  dinner-forks, 
and  ending  at  that  remote  quaint  period  when  people 
used  to  waltz  and  two-step — dead  eras  in  which  we 
average-novel-readers  are  not  interested;  The  Certain 
Hour  assumes  an  appreciable  amount  of  culture  and 
information  on  its  purchaser's  part,  which  we  average- 
novel-readers  either  lack  or,  else,  are  unaccustomed 
to  employ  in  connection  with  reading  for  pastime: 
and — in  our  eyes  the  crowning  misdemeanor — The 
Certain  Hour  is  not  "vital.'* 

Having  thus  candidly  confessed  these  faults  com- 
mitted as  the  writer  of  this  book,  it  is  still  possible 
in  human  multifariousness  to  consider  their  enormity, 
not  merely  in  this  book,  but  in  fictional  reading-mat- 
ter at  large,  as  viewed  by  an  average-novel-reader — 
by  a  representative  of  that  potent  class  whose  pref- 
erences dictate  the  nature  and  main  trend  of  modern 
American  literature.  And  to  do  this,  it  may  be, 
throws  no  unsalutary  sidelight  upon  the  still-existent 
problem :  at  what  cost,  now,  may  one  attempt  to  write 
perfectly  of  beautiful  happenings? 
18 


Ill 


Indisputably  the  most  striking  defect  of  this  modern 
American  literature  is  the  fact  that  the  production  of 
anything  at  all  resembling  literature  is  scarcely  any- 
where apparent.  Innumerable  printing-presses,  in- 
stead, are  turning  out  a  vast  quantity  of  reading- 
matter,  the  candidly  recognized  purpose  of  which  is 
to  kill  time,  and  which — it  has  been  asserted,  though 
perhaps  too  sweepingly — ought  not  to  be  vended  over 
book-counters,  but  rather  in  drugstores  along  with 
the  other  narcotics. 

It  is  begging  the  question  to  protest  that  the  class 
of  people  who  a  generation  ago  read  nothing  now  at 
least  read  novels,  and  to  regard  this  as  a  change  for 
the  better.  By  similar  logic  it  would  be  more  whole- 
some to  breakfast  off  laudanum  than  to  omit  the  meal 
entirely.  The  nineteenth  century,  in  fact,  by  making 
education  popular,  has  produced  in  America  the  curi- 
ous spectacle  of  a  reading-public  with  essentially  non- 
literary  tastes.  Formerly,  better  books  were  pub- 
lished, because  they  were  intended  for  persons  who 
turned  to  reading  through  a  natural  bent  of  mind; 

19 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


whereas  the  modern  American  novel  of  commerce  is 
addressed  to  us  average  people  who  read,  when  we 
read  at  all,  in  violation  of  every  innate  instinct. 

Such  grounds  as  yet  exist  for  hopefulness  on  the 
part  of  those  who  cordially  care  for  belles  lettres  are 
to  be  found  elsewhere  than  in  the  crowded  market- 
places of  fiction,  where  genuine  intelligence  panders 
on  all  sides  to  ignorance  and  indolence.  The  phrase 
may  seem  to  have  no  very  civil  ring;  but  reflection 
will  assure  the  fair-minded  that  two  indispensable 
requisites  nowadays  of  a  pecuniarily  successful  novel 
are,  really,  that  it  make  no  demand  upon  the  reader's 
imagination,  and  that  it  rigorously  refrain  from  as- 
suming its  reader  to  possess  any  particular  informa- 
tion on  any  subject  whatever.  The  author  who  writes 
over  the  head  of  the  public  is  the  most  dangerous 
enemy  of  his  publisher — and  the  most  insidious  as 
well,  because  so  many  publishers  are  in  private  life 
interested  in  literary  matters,  and  would  readily  per- 
mit this  personal  foible  to  influence  the  exercise  of 
their  vocation  were  it  possible  to  do  so  upon  the  pref- 
erabfe  side  of  bankruptcy. 

But  publishers,  among  innumerable  other  condi- 
tions, must  weigh  the  fact  that  no  novel  which  does 
not  deal  with  modern  times  is  ever  really  popular 
among  the  serious-minded.  It  is  difficult  to  imagine 
a  tale  whose  action  developed  under  the  rule  of  the 
C -tsars  or  the  Merovingians  being  treated  as  more  than 
a  literary  hors  d'ceuvre.  We  purchasers  of  "vital" 
novels  know  nothing  about  the  period,  beyond  a  hazy 
20 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


association  of  it  with  the  restrictions  of  the  school- 
room; our  sluggish  imaginations  instinctively  rebel 
against  the  exertion  of  forming  any  notion  of  such  a 
period;  and  all  the  human  nature  that  exists  even  in 
serious-minded  persons  is  stirred  up  to  resentment 
against  the  book's  author  for  presuming  to  know  more 
than  a  potential  patron.  The  book,  in  fine,  simply 
irritates  the  serious-minded  person ;  and  she — for  it  is 
only  women  who  willingly  brave  the  terrors  of  depart- 
ment-stores, where  most  of  our  new  books  are  bought 
nowadays — quite  naturally  puts  it  aside  in  favor  of 
some  keen  and  daring  study  of  American  life  that  is 
warranted  to  grip  the  reader.  So,  modernity  of  scene 
is  everywhere  necessitated  as  an  essential  qualification 
for  a  book's  discussion  at  the  literary  evenings  of  the 
local  woman's  club ;  and  modernity  of  scene,  of  course, 
is  almost  always  fatal  to  the  permanent  worth  of 
fictitious  narrative. 

It  may  seem  banal  here  to  recall  the  truism  that 
first-class  art  never  reproduces  its  surroundings;  but 
such  banality  is  often  justified  by  our  human  prone- 
ness  to  shuffle  over  the  fact  that  many  truisms  are  true. 
And  this  one  is  pre-eminently  indisputable :  that  what 
mankind  has  generally  agreed  to  accept  as  first-class 
art  in  any  of  the  varied  forms  of  fictitious  narrative 
has  never  been  a  truthful  reproduction  of  the  artist's 
era.  Indeed,  in  the  higher  walks  of  fiction  art  has 
never  reproduced  anything,  but  has  always  dealt  with 
the  facts  and  laws  of  life  as  so  much  crude  material 
which  must  be  transmuted  into  comeliness.  When 

21 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Shakespeare  pronounced  his  celebrated  dictum  about 
art's  holding  the  mirror  up  to  nature,  he  was  no  doubt 
alluding  to  the  circumstance  that  a  mirror  reverses 
everything  which  it  reflects. 

Nourishment  for  much  wildish  speculation,  in  fact, 
can  be  got  by  considering  what  the  world's  literature 
would  be,  had  its  authors  restricted  themselves,  as  do 
we  Americans  so  sedulously — and  unavoidably — to 
writing  of  contemporaneous  happenings.  In  fiction- 
making  no  author  of  the  first  class  since  Homer's 
infancy  has  ever  in  his  happier  efforts  concerned  him- 
self at  all  with  the  great  "problems"  of  his  particular 
day;  and  among  geniuses  of  the  second  rank  you  will 
find  such  ephemeralities  adroitly  utilized  only  when 
they  are  distorted  into  enduring  parodies  of  their  actual 
selves  by  the  broad  humor  of  a  Dickens  or  the  colossal 
fantasy  of  a  Balzac.  In  such  cases  as  the  latter  two 
writers,  however,  we  have  an  otherwise  competent 
artist  handicapped  by  a  personality  so  marked  that, 
whatever  he  may  nominally  write  about,  the  result  is, 
above  all  else,  an  exposure  of  the  writer's  idiosyncra- 
sies. Then,  too,  the  laws  of  any  locale  wherein  Mr. 
Pickwick  achieves  a  competence  in  business,  or  of  a 
society  wherein  Vautrin  becomes  chief  of  police,  are 
upon  the  face  of  it  extra-mundane.  It  suffices  that, 
as  a  general  rule,  in  fiction-making  the  true  artist 
finds  an  ample,  if  restricted,  field  wherein  the  proper 
functions  of  the  preacher,  or  the  ventriloquist,  or  the 
photographer,  or  of  the  public  prosecutor,  are  exer- 
cised with  equal  lack  of  grace. 

22 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


Besides,  in  dealing  with  contemporary  life  a  nov- 
elist is  goaded  into  too  many  pusillanimous  concessions 
to  plausibility.  He  no  longer  moves  with  the  gait  of 
omnipotence.  It  was  very  different  in  the  palmy  days 
when  Dumas  was  free  to  play  at  ducks  and  drakes 
with  history,  and  Victor  Hugo  to  reconstruct  the 
whole  system  of  English  government,  and  Scott  to 
compel  the  sun  to  set  in  the  east,  whenever  such 
minor  changes  caused  to  flow  more  smoothly  the 
progress  of  the  tale  these  giants  had  in  hand.  These 
freedoms  are  not  tolerated  in  American  noveldom,  and 
only  a  few  futile  "high-brows"  sigh  in  vain  for  Thack- 
eray's "happy  harmless  Fableland,  where  these  things 
are."  The  majority  of  us  are  deep  in  "vital"  novels. 
Nor  is  the  reason  far  to  seek. 


IV 


One  hears  a  great  deal  nowadays  concerning  "vital" 
books.  Their  authors  have  been  widely  praised  on 
very  various  grounds.  Oddly  enough,  however,  the 
writers  of  these  books  have  rarely  been  commended 
for  the  really  praiseworthy  charity  evinced  therein 
toward  that  large  long-suffering  class  loosely  describa- 
ble  as  the  average-novel-reader. 

Yet,  in  connection  with  this  fact,  it  is  worthy  of 
more  than  passing  note  that  no  great  while  ago  the 
New  York  Times'  carefully  selected  committee,  in 
picking  out  the  hundred  best  books  published  during  a 
particular  year,  declared  as  to  novels — "a  'best'  book, 
in  our  opinion,  is  one  that  raises  an  important  question, 
or  recurs  to  a  vital  theme  and  pronounces  upon  it 
what  in  some  sense  is  a  last  word."  Now  this  defini- 
tion is  not  likely  ever  to  receive  more  praise  than  it 
deserves.  Cavilers  may,  of  course,  complain  that 
actually  to  write  the  last  word  on  any  subject  is  a 
feat  reserved  for  the  Recording  Angel's  unique  per- 
formance on  Judgment  Day.  Even  setting  that  objec- 
tion aside,  it  is  undeniable  that  no  work  of  fiction  pub- 
24 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


lished  of  late  in  America  corresponds  quite  so  accu- 
rately to  the  terms  of  this  definition  as  do  the 
multiplication  tables.  Yet  the  multiplication  tables  are 
not  without  their  claims  to  applause  as  examples  of 
straightforward  narrative.  It  is,  also,  at  least  per- 
missible to  consider  that  therein  the  numeral  five,  say, 
where  it  figures  as  protagonist,  unfolds  under  the  stress 
of  its  varying  adventures  as  opulent  a  development  of 
real  human  nature  as  does,  through  similar  ups-and- 
downs,  the  Reverend  John  Hodder  in  The  Inside  of 
the  Cup.  It  is  equally  allowable  to  find  the  less  simple 
evolutions  of  the  digit  seven  more  sympathetic,  upon 
the  whole,  than  those  of  Undine  Spragg  in  The  Cus- 
tom of  the  Country.  But,  even  so,  this  definition  of 
what  may  now,  authoritatively,  be  ranked  as  a  "best 
novel' '  is  an  honest  and  noteworthy  severance  from 
misleading  literary  associations  such  as  have  too  long 
befogged  our  notions  about  reading-matter.  It  points 
with  emphasis  toward  the  altruistic  obligations  of 
tale-tellers  to  be  "vital." 

For  we  average-novel-readers — we  average  people, 
in  a  word — are  now,  as  always,  rather  pathetically 
hungry  for  "vital"  themes,  such  themes  as  appeal 
directly  to  our  everyday  observation  and  prejudices. 
Did  the  decision  rest  with  us  all  novelists  would  be 
put  under  bond  to  confine  themselves  forevermore  to 
themes  like  these. 

As  touches  the  appeal  to  everyday  observation,  it  is 
an  old  story,  at  least  coeval  with  Mr.  Crummies'  not 
uncelebrated  pumps  and  tubs,  if  not  with  the  grapes  of 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Zeuxis,  how  unfailingly  in  art  we  delight  to  recognize 
the  familiar.  A  novel  whose  scene  of  action  is  explicit 
will  always  interest  the  people  of  that  locality,  what- 
ever the  book's  other  pretensions  to  consideration. 
Given  simultaneously  a  photograph  of  Murillo's  ren- 
dering of  The  Virgin  Crowned  Queen  of  Heaven  and 
a  photograph  of  a  governor's  installation  in  our  State 
capital,  there  is  no  one  of  us  but  will  quite  naturally 
look  at  the  latter  first,  in  order  to  see  if  in  it  some 
familiar  countenance  be  recognizable.  And  thus,  upon 
a  larger  scale,  the  twentieth  century  is,  pre-eminently, 
interested  in  the  twentieth  century. 

It  is  all  very  well  to  describe  our  average-novel- 
readers'  dislike  of  Romanticism  as  "the  rage  of  Caliban 
not  seeing  his  own  face  in  a  glass."  It  is  even  within 
the  scope  of  human  dunderheadedness  again  to  point 
out  here  that  the  supreme  artists  in  literature  have 
precisely  this  in  common,  and  this  alone,  that  in  their 
masterworks  they  have  avoided  the  "vital"  themes  of 
their  day  with  such  circumspection  as  lesser  folk 
reserve  for  the  smallpox.  The  answer,  of  course,  in 
either  case,  is  that  the  "vital"  novel,  the  novel  which 
peculiarly  appeals  to  us  average-novel-readers,  has 
nothing  to  do  with  literature.  There  is  between  these 
two  no  more  intelligent  connection  than  links  the 
paint  Mr.  Sargent  puts  on  canvas  and  the  paint  Mr. 
Dockstader  puts  on  his  face. 

Literature  is  made  up  of  the  re-readable  books,  the 
books  which  it  is  possible — for  the  people  so  consti- 
tuted as  to  care  for  that  sort  of  thing — to  read  again 
26 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


and  yet  again  with  pleasure.  Therefore,  in  literature  a 
book's  subject  is  of  astonishingly  minor  importance, 
and  its  style  nearly  everything:  whereas  in  books  in- 
tended to  be  read  for  pastime,  and  forthwith  to  be 
consigned  at  random  to  the  wastebasket  or  to  the 
inmates  of  some  charitable  institute,  the  theme  is  of 
paramount  importance,  and  ought  to  be  a  serious  one. 
The  modern  novelist  owes  it  to  his  public  to  select  a 
"vital"  theme  which  in  itself  will  fix  the  reader's 
attention  by  reason  of  its  familiarity  in  the  reader's 
everyday  life. 

Thus,  a  lady  with  whose  more  candid  opinions  the 
writer  of  this  is  more  frequently  favored  nowadays 
than  of  old,  formerly  confessed  to  having  only  one  set 
rule  when  it  came  to  investment  in  new  reading-mat- 
ter—always to  buy  the  Williamsons'  last  book.  Her 
reason  was  the  perfectly  sensible  one  that  the  William- 
sons' plots  used  invariably  to  pivot  upon  motor-trips, 
and  she  is  an  ardent  automobilist.  Since,  as  of  late, 
the  Williamsons  have  seen  fit  to  exercise  their  type- 
writer upon  other  topics,  they  have  as  a  matter  of 
course  lost  her  patronage. 

This  principle  of  selection,  when  you  come  to  ap- 
praise it  sanely,  is  the  sole  intelligent  method  of  deal- 
ing with  reading-matter.  It  seems  here  expedient 
again  to  state  the  peculiar  problem  that  we  average- 
novel-readers  have  of  necessity  set  the  modern  novelist 
— namely,  that  his  books  must  in  the  main  appeal  to 
people  who  read  for  pastime,  to  people  who  read 

27 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


books  only  tinder  protest  and  only  when  they  have  no 
other  employment  for  that  particular  half -hour. 

Now,  reading  for  pastime  is  immensely  simplified 
when  the  book's  theme  is  some  familiar  matter  of  the 
reader's  workaday  life,  because  at  outset  the  reader  is 
spared  considerable  mental  effort.  The  motorist  above 
referred  to,  and  indeed  any  average-novel-reader,  can 
without  exe'rtion  conceive  of  the  Williamsons'  people 
in  their  automobiles.  Contrariwise,  were  these  ficti- 
tious characters  embarked  in  palankeens  or  droshkies 
or  jinrikishas,  more  or  less  intellectual  exercise 
would  be  necessitated  on  the  reader's  part  to  form  a 
notion  of  the  conveyance.  And  we  average-novel- 
readers  do  not  open  a  book  with  the  intention  of  mak- 
ing a  mental  effort.  The  author  has  no  right  to  expect 
of  us  an  act  so  unhabitual,  we  very  poignantly  feel. 
Our  prejudices  he  is  freely  chartered  to  stir  up — if, 
lucky  rogue,  he  can! — but  he  ought  with  deliberation 
to  recognize  that  it  is  precisely  in  order  to  avoid  mental 
effort  that  we  purchase,  or  borrow,  his  book,  and  after- 
ward discuss  it. 

Hence  arises  our  heartfelt  gratitude  toward  such 
novels  as  deal  with  "vital"  themes,  with  the  questions 
we  average-novel-readers  confront  or  make  talk  about 
in  those  happier  hours  of  our  existence  wherein  we 
are  not  reduced  to  reading.  Thus,  a  tale,  for  example, 
dealing  either  with  "feminism"  or  "white  slavery"  as 
the  handiest  makeshift  of  spinsterdom — or  with  the 
divorce  habit  and  plutocratic  iniquity  in  general,  or 
with  the  probable  benefits  of  converting  clergymen  to 
28 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


Christianity,  or  with  how  much  more  than  she  knows 
a  desirable  mother  will  tell  her  children — finds  the 
book's  tentative  explorer,  just  now,  amply  equipped 
with  prejudices,  whether  acquired  by  second  thought 
or  second  hand,  concerning  the  book's  topic.  As  en- 
durability  goes,  reading  the  book  rises  forthwith  al- 
most to  the  level  of  an  afternoon-call  where  there  is 
gossip  about  the  neighbors  and  Germany's  future.  We 
average-novel-readers  may  not,  in  either  case,  agree 
with  the  opinions  advanced ;  but  at  least  our  prejudices 
are  aroused,  and  we  are  interested. 

And  these  "vital"  themes  awake  our  prejudices  at 
the  cost  of  a  minimum — if  not  always,  as  when  Miss 
Corelli  guides  us,  with  a  positively  negligible — tasking 
of  our  mental  faculties.  For  such  exemption  we 
average-novel-readers  cannot  but  be  properly  grateful. 
Nay,  more  than  this :  provided  the  novelist  contrive  to 
rouse  our  prejudices,  it  matters  with  us  not  at  all 
whether  afterward  they  be  soothed  or  harrowed.  To 
implicate  our  prejudices  somehow,  to  raise  in  us  a 
partizanship  in  the  tale's  progress,  is  our  sole  request. 
Whether  this  consummation  be  brought  about  through 
an  arraignment  of  some  social  condition  which  we 
personally  either  advocate  or  reprehend — the  attitude 
weighs  little — or  whether  this  interest  be  purchased 
with  placidly  driveling  preachments  of  generally 
"uplifting"  tendencies — vaguely  titillating  that  vague 
intention  which  exists  in  us  all  of  becoming  immacu- 
late as  soon  as  it  is  perfectly  convenient — the  personal 

29 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


prejudices  of  us  average-novel-readers  are  not  lightly 
lulled  again  to  sleep. 

In  fact,  the  jealousy  of  any  human  prejudice  against 
hinted  encroachment  may  safely  be  depended  upon 
to  spur  us  through  an  astonishing  number  ot  pages — 
for  all  that  it  has  of  late  been  complained  among  us, 
with  some  show  of  extenuation,  that  our  original  intent 
in  beginning  certain  of  the  recent  "vital"  novels  was 
to  kill  time,  rather  than  eternity.  And  so,  we  average- 
novel-readers  plod  on  jealously  to  the  end,  whether 
we  advance  (to  cite  examples  already  somewhat  of 
yesterday)  under  the  leadership  of  Mr.  Upton  Sinclair 
aspersing  the  integrity  of  modern  sausages  and  mil- 
lionaires, or  of  Mr.  Hall  Caine  saying  about  Roman 
Catholics  what  ordinary  people  would  hesitate  to 
impute  to  their  relatives  by  marriage — or  whether  we 
be  more  suavely  allured  onward  by  Mrs.  Florence 
Barclay,  or  Mr.  Sydnor  Harrison,  with  ingenuous  in- 
dorsements of  the  New  Testament  and  the  inherent 
womanliness  of  women. 

The  "vital"  theme,  then,  let  it  be  repeated,  has  two 
inestimable  advantages  which  should  commend  it  to 
all  novelists:  first,  it  spares  us  average-novel-readers 
any  preliminary  orientation,  and  thereby  mitigates  the 
mental  exertion  of  reading;  and  secondly,  it  appeals 
to  our  prejudices,  which  we  naturally  prefer  to  exer- 
cise, and  are  accustomed  to  exercise,  rather  than  our 
mental  or  idealistic  faculties.  The  novelist  who  con- 
scientiously bears  these  two  facts  in  mind  is  reason- 
ably sure  of  his  reward,  not  merely  in  pecuniary  form, 
30 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


but  in  those  higher  fields  wherein  he  harvests  his 
chosen  public's  honest  gratitude  and  affection. 

For  we  average-novel-readers  are  quite  frequently 
reduced  by  circumstances  to  self-entrustment  to  the 
resources  of  the  novelist,  as  to  those  of  the  dentist. 
Our  latter-day  conditions,  as  we  cannot  but  recognize, 
necessitate  the  employment  of  both  artists  upon  occa- 
sion. And  with  both,  we  average-novel-readers,  we 
average  people,  are  most  grateful  when  they  make  the 
process  of  resorting  to  them  as  easy  and  unirritating 
as  may  be  possible. 


V 


So  much  for  the  plea  of  us  average-novel-readers; 
and  our  plea,  we  think,  is  rational.  We  are  "in  the 
market"  for  a  specified  article;  and  human  ingenuity, 
co-operating  with  human  nature,  will  inevitably  insure 
the  manufacture  of  that  article  as  long  as  any  general 
demand  for  it  endures. 

Meanwhile,  it  is  small  cause  for  grief  that  the  pur- 
chaser of  American  novels  prefers  Central  Park  to 
any  "wood  near  Athens,"  and  is  more  at  home  in  the 
Tenderloin  than  in  Camelot.  People  whose  tastes 
happen  to  be  literary  are  entirely  too  prone  to  too  much 
long- faced  prattle  about  literature,  which,  when  all  is 
said,  is  never  a  controlling  factor  in  anybody's  life. 
The  automobile  and  the  telephone,  the  accomplish- 
ments of  Mr.  Edison  and  Mr.  Burbank,  and  it  would 
be  permissible  to  add  of  Mr.  Rockefeller,  influence 
nowadays,  in  one  fashion  or  another,  every  moment  of 
every  living  American's  existence;  whereas  had 
America  produced,  instead,  a  second  Milton  or  a 
Dante,  it  would  at  most  have  caused  a  few  of  us  to 
spend  a  few  spare  evenings  rather  differently. 

Besides,  we  know — even  we  average-novel-readers 
— that  America  is  in  fact  producing  her  enduring 
3* 


AUCTORIAL     INDUCTION 


literature  day  by  day,  although,  as  rarely  fails  to  be 
the  case,  those  who  are  contemporaneous  with  the 
makers  of  this  literature  cannot  with  any  certainty 
point  them  out.  To  voice  a  hoary  truism,  time  alone 
is  the  test  of  'Vitality."  In  our  present  flood  of  books, 
as  in  any  other  flood,  it  is  the  froth  and  scum  which 
shows  most  prominently.  And  the  possession  of 
"vitality,"  here  as  elsewhere,  postulates  that  its  pos- 
sessor must  ultimately  perish. 

Nay,  by  the  time  these  printed  pages  are  first  read 
as  printed  pages,  allusion  to  those  modern  authors 
whom  these  pages  cite — the  pre-eminent  literary  per- 
sonages of  that  hour  wherein  these  pages  were  written 
— will  inevitably  have  come  to  savor  somewhat  of  an- 
tiquity :  so  that  sundry  references  herein  to  the  "vital" 
books  now  most  in  vogue  will  rouse  much  that  vague 
shrugging  recollection  as  wakens,  say,  at  a  mention  of 
Dorothy  Vernon  or  Three  Weeks  or  Beverly  of 
Graustark.  And  while  at  first  glanqe  it  might  seem 
expedient — in  revising  the  last  proof-sheets  of  these 
pages — somewhat  to  "freshen  them  up"  by  substitut- 
ing, for  the  books  herein  referred  to,  the  "vital"  and 
more  widely  talked-of  novels  of  the  summer  of  1916, 
the  task  would  be  but  wasted  labor;  since  even  these 
fascinating  chronicles,  one  comprehends  forlornly, 
must  needs  be  equally  obsolete  by  the  time  these  proof- 
sheets  have  been  made  into  a  volume.  With  malice 
aforethought,  therefore,  the  books  and  authors  named 
herein  stay  those  which  all  of  three  years  back  our 
reviewers  and  advertising  pages,  with  perfect  gravity, 

33 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


acclaimed  as  of  enduring  importance.  For  the  quaint- 
ness  of  that  opinion,  nowadays,  may  profitably  round 
the  moral  that  there  is  really  nothing  whereto  one  may 
fittingly  compare  a  successful  contribution  to  "vital" 
reading-matter,  as  touches  evanescence. 

And  this  is  as  it  should  be.  Tout  passe. — L'art 
robust  seul  a  I'eternite,  precisely  as  Gautier  points  out, 
with  bracing  common-sense;  and  it  is  excellent  thus 
to  comprehend  that  to-day,  as  always,  only  through 
exercise  of  the  auctorial  virtues  of  distinction  and 
clarity,  of  beauty  and  symmetry,  of  tenderness  and 
truth  and  urbanity,  may  a  man  in  reason  attempt  to 
insure  his  books  against  oblivion's  voracity. 

Yet  the  desire  to  write  perfectly  of  beautiful  hap- 
penings is,  as  the  saying  runs,  old  as  the  hills — and  as 
immortal.  Questionless,  there  was  many  a  serviceable 
brick  wasted  in  Nineveh  because  finicky  persons  must 
needs  be  deleting  here  and  there  a  phrase  in  favor  of  its 
cuneatic  synonym ;  and  it  is  not  improbable  that  when 
the  outworn  sun  expires  in  clinkers  its  final  ray  will 
gild  such  zealots  tinkering  with  their  "style."  This, 
then,  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  matter.  Some  few 
there  must  be  in  every  age  and  every  land  of  whom 
life  claims  nothing  very  insistently  save  that  they 
write  perfectly  of  beautiful  happenings.  And  even  we 
average-novel-readers  know  it  is  such  folk  who  are 
to-day  making  in  America  that  portion  of  our  litera- 
ture which  may  hope  for  permanency. 


Dumbarton  Grange 
1914-1016 

34 


BELHS   CAVALIERS 


"For  this  RAIMBAUT  DE  VAQUIERAS  lived  at  a  time 
when  prolonged  habits  of  extra-mundane  contempla- 
tion, combined  with  the  decay  of  real  knowledge,  were 
apt  to  volatilize  the  thoughts  and  aspirations  of  the  best 
and  wisest  into  dreamy  unrealities,  and  to  lend  a  false 
air  of  mysticism  to  love.  .  .  .  It  is  as  if  the  intellect  and 
the  will  had  become  used  to  moving  paralytically  among 
visions,  dreams,  and  mystic  terrors,  weighed  down  with 
torpor'9 


Fair  friend,  since  that  hour  I  took  leave  of  thee 
I  have  not  slept  nor  stirred  from  off  my  knee, 
But  prayed  alway  to  God,  S.  Mary's  Son, 
To  give  me  back  my  true  companion ; 
And  soon  it  will  be  Dawn. 

Fair  friend,  at  parting,  thy  behest  to  me 
Was  that  all  sloth  I  should  eschew  and  flee, 
And  keep  good  Watch  until  the  Night  was  done : 
Now  must  my  Song  and  Service  pass  for  none  ? — 
For  soon  it  will  be  Dawn. 

RAIMBAUT  DE  VAQUIERAS.    Aubade, 
from  F.  York  Powell's  version. 


BELHS  CAVALIERS 


YOU  may  read  elsewhere  of  the  long  feud  that 
was  between  Guillaume  de  Baux,  afterward 
Prince  of  Orange,  and  his  kinsman  Raimbaut 
de  Vaquieras.  They  were  not  reconciled  until  their 
youth  was  dead.  Then,  when  Messire  JRaimbaut  re- 
turned from  battling  against  the  Turks  and  the  Bul- 
garians, in  the  i,2ioth  year  from  man's  salvation,  the 
Archbishop  of  Rheims  made  peace  between  the  two 
cousins ;  and,  attended  by  Makrisi,  a  converted  Saracen 
who  had  followed  the  knight's  fortunes  for  well  nigh  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  the  Sire  de  Vaquieras  rode 
homeward. 

Many  slain  men  were  scattered  along  the  highway 
when  he  came  again  into  Venaissin,  in  April,  after  an 
absence  of  thirty  years.  The  crows  whom  his  pass- 
ing disturbed  were  too  sluggish  for  long  flights  and 
many  of  them  did  not  heed  him  at  all.  Guillaume  de 
Baux  was  now  undisputed  master  of  these  parts,  al- 
though, as  this  host  of  mute,  hacked  and  partially 
devoured  witnesses  attested,  the  contest  had  been 
dubious  for  a  while:  but  now  Lovain  of  the  Great- 

37 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


Tooth,  Prince  Guillaume's  last  competitor,  was  cap- 
tured; the  forces  of  Lovain  were  scattered;  and  of 
Lovain's  lieutenants  only  Mahi  de  Vernoil  was 
unsubdued. 

Prince  Guillaume  laughed  a  little  when  he  told  his 
kinsman  of  the  posture  of  affairs,  as  more  loudly  did 
Guillaume's  gross  son,  Sire  Philibert.  But  Madona 
Biatritz  did  not  laugh.  She  was  the  widow  of  Guil- 
laume's dead  brother — Prince  Conrat,  whom  Guil- 
laume succeeded — and  it  was  in  her  honor  that  Raim- 
baut  had  made  those  songs  which  won  him  eminence 
as  a  practitioner  of  the  Gay  Science. 

Biatritz  said,  "It  is  a  long  while  since  we  two  met." 
He  that  had  been  her  lover  all  his  life  said,  "Yes." 
She  was  no  longer  the  most  beautiful  of  women,  no 
longer  his  be-hymned  Belhs  Cavaliers — you  may  read 
elsewhere  how  he  came  to  call  her  that  in  all  his 
canzons — but  only  a  fine  and  gracious  stranger.  It 
was  uniformly  gray,  that  soft  and  plentiful  hair,  where 
once  such  gold  had  flamed  as  dizzied  him  to  think  of 
even  now;  there  was  no  crimson  in  these  thinner  lips; 
and  candor  would  have  found  her  eyes  less  wonderful 
than  those  Raimbaut  had  dreamed  of  very  often  among 
an  alien  and  hostile  people.  But  he  lamented  nothing, 
and  to  him  she  was  as  ever  Heaven's  most  splendid 
miracle. 

"Yes,"  said  this  old  Raimbaut, — "and  even  to-day 
we  have  not  reclaimed  the  Sepulcher  as  yet.  Oh,  I 
doubt  if  we  shall  ever  win  it,  now  that  your  brother 
and  my  most  dear  lord  is  dead."  Both  thought  a 

38 


B  E  LH  S     CAVALIERS 


while  of  Boniface  de  Montferrat,  their  playmate  once, 
who  yesterday  was  King  of  Thessalonica  and  now  was 
so  much  Macedonian  dust. 

She  said:  "This  week  the  Prince  sent  envoys  to 
my  nephew.  .  .  .  And  so  you  have  come  home 

again "     Color  had  surged   into  her  time-worn 

face,  and  as  she  thought  of  things  done  long  ago  this 
woman's  eyes  were  like  the  eyes  of  his  young  Biatritz. 
She  said:  "You  never  married?" 

He  answered:  "No,  I  have  left  love  alone.  For 
Love  prefers  to  take  rather  than  to  give;  against  a 
single  happy  hour  he  balances  a  hundred  miseries,  and 
he  appraises  one  pleasure  to  be  worth  a  thousand 
pangs.  Pardieu,  let  this  immortal  usurer  contrive  as 
may  seem  well  to  him,  for  I  desire  no  more  of  his 
bounty  or  of  his  penalties." 

"No,  we  wish  earnestly  for  nothing,  either  good  or 
bad,"  said  Dona  Biatritz — "we  who  have  done  with 
loving.'* 

They  sat  in  silence,  musing  over  ancient  happen- 
ings, and  not  looking  at  each  other,  until  the  Prince 
came  with  his  guests,  who  seemed  to  laugh  too 
heartily. 

Guillaume's  frail  arm  was  about  his  kinsman,  and 
Guillaume  chuckled  over  jests  and  by- words  that  had 
been  between  the  cousins  as  children.  Raimbaut  found 
them  no  food  for  laughter  now.  Guillaume  told  all  of 
Raimbaut's  oath  of  fealty,  and  of  how  these  two 
were  friends  and  their  unnatural  feud  was  forgotten. 
"For  we  grow  old, — eh,  maker  of  songs?"  he  said; 

39 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


"and  it  is  time  we  made  our  peace  with  Heaven,  since 
we  are  not  long  for  this  world." 

"Yes,"  said  the  knight;  "oh  yes,  we  both  grow  old." 
He  thought  of  another  April  evening,  so  long  ago, 
when  this  Guillaume  de  Baux  had  stabbed  him  in  a 
hedged  field  near  Calais,  and  had  left  him  under  a 
hawthorn  bush  for  dead;  and  Raimbaut  wondered 
that  there  was  no  anger  in  his  heart.  "We  are  friends 
now,"  he  said.  Biatritz,  whom  these  two  had  loved, 
and  whose  vanished  beauty  had  been  the  spur  of  their 
long  enmity,  sat  close  to  them,  and  hardly  seemed  to 
listen. 

Thus  the  evening  passed  and  every  one  was  merry, 
because  the  Prince  had  overcome  Lovain  of  the  Great- 
Tooth,  and  was  to  punish  the  upstart  on  the  morrow. 
But  Raimbaut  de  Vaquieras,  a  spent  fellow,  a  derelict, 
barren  of  aim  now  that  the  Holy  Wars  were  over, 
sat  in  this  unfamiliar  place — where  when  he  was 
young  he  had  laughed  as  a  cock  crows ! — and  thought 
how  at  the  last  he  had  crept  home  to  die  as  a  dependent 
on  his  cousin's  bounty. 

Thus  the  evening  passed,  and  at  its  end  Makrisi 
followed  the  troubadour  to  his  regranted  fief  of 
Vaquieras.  This  was  a  chill  and  brilliant  night, 
swayed  by  a  frozen  moon  so  powerful  that  no  stars 
showed  in  the  unclouded  heavens,  and  everywhere  the 
bogs  were  curdled  with  thin  ice.  An  obdurate  wind 
swept  like  a  knife-blade  across  a  world  which  even  in 
its  spring  seemed  very  old. 

"This  night  is  bleak  and  evil,"  Makrisi  said.  He 
40 


B  E  LH  S     CAVALIERS 


rode  a  coffin's  length  behind  his  master.  "It  is  like 
Prince  Guillaume,  I  think.  What  man  will  sorrow 
when  dawn  comes?" 

Raimbaut  de  Vaquieras  replied:  "Always  dawn 
comes  at  last,  Makrisi." 

"It  comes  the  more  quickly,  messire,  when  it  is 
prompted." 

The  troubadour  only  smiled  at  words  which  seemed 
so  meaningless.  He  did  not  smile  when  later  in  the 
night  Makrisi  brought  Mahi  de  Vernoil,  disguised  as  a 
mendicant  friar.  This  outlaw  pleaded  with  Sire 
Raimbaut  to  head  the  tatters  of  Lovain's  army,  and 
showed  Raimbaut  how  easy  it  would  be  to  wrest 
Venaissin  from  Prince  Guillaume.  "We  cannot  save 
Lovain,"  de  Vernoil  said,  "for  Guillaume  has  him 
fast.  But  Venaissin  is  very  proud  of  you,  my  tres 
beau  sire.  Ho,  maker  of  world-famous  songs!  stout 
champion  of  the  faith!  my  men  and  I  will  now  make 
you  Prince  of  Orange  in  place  of  the  fiend  who  rules 
us.  You  may  then  at  your  convenience  wed  Madona 
Biatritz,  that  most  amiable  lady  whom  you  have  loved 
so  long.  And  by  the  Cross!  you  may  do  this  before 
the  week  is  out/' 

The  old  knight  answered:  "It  is  true  that  I  have 
always  served  Madona  Biatritz,  who  is  of  matchless 
worth.  I  might  not,  therefore,  presume  to  call  myself 
any  longer  her  servant  were  my  honor  stained  in  any 
particular.  Oh  no,  Messire  de  Vernoil,  an  oath  is  an 
oath.  I  have  this  day  sworn  fealty  to  Guillaume  de 
Baux." 

41 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Then  after  other  talk  Raimbaut  dismissed  the  fierce- 
eyed  little  man.  The  freebooter  growled  curses  as  he 
went.  On  a  sudden  he  whistled,  like  a  person  cobsid- 
ering,  and  he  began  to  chuckle. 

Raunbaut  said,  more  lately:  "Zoraida  left  no  whole- 
some legacy  in  you,  Makrisi."  This  Zoraida  was  a 
woman  the  knight  had  known  in  Constantinople — a 
comely  outlander  who  had  killed  herself  because  of 
Sire  Raimbaut's  highflown  avoidance  of  all  woman- 
kind except  the  mistress  of  his  youth. 

"Nay,  save  only  in  loving  you  too  well,  messire,  was 
Zoraida  a  wise  woman,  notably.  .  .  .  But  this  is  out- 
worn talk,  the  prattle  of  Cain's  babyhood.  As  matters 
were,  you  did  not  love  Zoraida.  So  Zoraida  died. 
Such  is  the  custom  in  my  country." 

"You  trouble  me,  Makrisi.  Your  eyes  are  like 
blown  coals.  .  .  .  Yet  you  have  served  me  long  and 
faithfully.  You  know  that  mine  was  ever  the  voca- 
tion of  dealing  honorably  in  battle  among  emperors, 
and  of  spreading  broadcast  the  rumor  of  my  valor, 
and  of  achieving  good  by  my  sword's  labors.  I  have 
lived  by  warfare.  Long,  long  ago,  since  I  derived  no 
benefit  from  love,  I  cried  farewell  to  it." 

"Ay,"  said  Makrisi.  "Love  makes  a  demi-god  of 
all — just  for  an  hour.  Such  hours  as  follow  we  devote 
to  the  concoction  of  sleeping-draughts."  He  laughed, 
and  very  harshly. 

And  Raimbaut  did  not  sleep  that  night  because  this 
life  of  ours  seemed  such  a  piece  of  tangle- work  as  he 
had  not  the  skill  to  unravel.  So  he  devoted  the  wakeful 
42 


BELHS     CAVALIERS 


hours  to  composition  of  a  planh,  lamenting  vanished 
youth  and  that  Biatritz  whom  the  years  had  stolen. 

Then  on  the  ensuing  morning,  after  some  talk  about 
the  new  campaign,  Prince  Guillaume  de  Baux  leaned 
back  in  his  high  chair  and  said,  abruptly: 

"In  perfect  candor,  you  puzzle  your  liege-lord.  For 
you  loathe  me  and  you  still  worship  my  sister-in-law, 
an  unattainable  princess.  In  these  two  particulars  you 
display  such  wisdom  as  would  inevitably  prompt  you 
to  make  an  end  of  me.  Yet,  what  the  devil !  you,  the 
time-battered  vagabond,  decline  happiness  and  a  king- 
dom to  boot  because  of  yesterday's  mummery  in  the 
cathedral!  because  of  a  mere  promise  given!  Yes,  I 
have  my  spies  in  every  rat-hole.  I  am  aware  that  my 
barons  hate  me,  and  hate  Philibert  almost  as  bit- 
terly,— and  that,  in  fine,  a  majority  of  my  barons 
would  prefer  to  see  you  Prince  in  my  unstable  place, 
on  account  of  your  praiseworthy  molestations  of 
heathenry.  Oh,  yes,  I  understand  my  barons  per- 
fectly. I  flatter  myself  I  understand  everybody  in 
Venaissin  save  you." 

Raimbaut  answered :    "You  and  I  are  not  alike." 

"No,  praise  each  and  every  Saint!"  said  the  Prince 

of  Orange,  heartily.  "And  yet,  I  am  not  sure " 

He  rose,  for  his  sight  had  failed  him  so  that  he  could 
not  distinctly  see  you  except  when  he  spoke  with  head 
thrown  back,  as  though  he  looked  at  you  over  a  wall. 
"For  instance,  do  you  understand  that  I  hold  Biatritz 
here  as  a  prisoner,  because  her  dower-lands  are  neces- 

43 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


sary  to  me,  and  that  I  intend  to  marry  her  as  soon  as 
Pope  Innocent  grants  me  a  dispensation?" 

"All  Venaissin  knows  that.  Yes,  you  have  always 
gained  everything  which  you  desired  in  this  world, 
Guillaume.  Yet  it  was  at  a  price,  I  think." 

"I  am  no  haggler.  .  .  .  But  you  have  never  com- 
prehended me,  not  even  in  the  old  days  when  we  loved 
each  other.  For  instance,  do  you  understand — slave  of 
a  spoken  word! — what  it  must  mean  to  me  to  know 
that  at  this  hour  to-morrow  there  will  be  alive  in 
Venaissin  no  person  whom  I  hate?" 

Messire  de  Vaquieras  reflected.  His  was  never  a 
rapid  mind.  "Why,  no,  I  do  not  know  anything  about 
hatred,"  he  said,  at  last.  "I  think  I  never  hated  any 
person." 

Guillaume  de  Baux  gave  a  half-frantic  gesture. 
"Now,  Heaven  send  you  troubadours  a  clearer  under- 
standing of  what  sort  of  world  we  live  in !"  He 

broke  off  short  and  growled,  "And  yet — sometimes  I 
envy  you,  Raimbaut !" 

They  rode  then  into  the  Square  of  St.  Michel  to 
witness  the  death  of  Lovain.  Guillaume  took  with 
him  his  two  new  mistresses  and  all  his  by-blows,  each 
magnificently  clothed,  as  if  they  rode  to  a  festival. 
Afterward,  before  the  doors  of  Lovain's  burning 
house,  a  rope  was  fastened  under  Lovain's  armpits, 
and  he  was  gently  lowered  into  a  pot  of  boiling  oil. 
His  feet  cooked  first,  and  then  the  flesh  of  his  legs, 
and  so  on  upward,  while  Lovain  screamed.  Guillaume, 
in  a  loose  robe  of  green  powdered  with  innumerable 
44 


B  E  LH  S     CAVALIERS 


silver  crescents,  sat  watching,  under  a  canopy  woven 
very  long  ago  in  Tarshish,  and  cunningly  embroidered 
with  the  figures  of  peacocks  and  apes  and  men  with 
eagles*  heads.  His  hands  caressed  each  other  medi- 
tatively. 

It  was  on  the  afternoon  of  this  day,  the  last  of 
April,  that  Sire  Raimbaut  came  upon  Madona  Biatritz 
about  a  strange  employment  in  the  Ladies'  Court. 
There  was  then  a  well  in  the  midst  of  this  enclosure, 
with  a  granite  ledge  around  it  carven  with  lilies;  and 
upon  this  she  leaned,  looking  down  into  the  water.  In 
her  lap  was  a  rope  of  pearls,  which  one  by  one  she 
unthreaded  and  dropped  into  the  well. 

Clear  and  warm  the  weather  was.  Without,  forests 
were  quickening,  branch  by  branch,  as  though  a  green 
flame  smoldered  from  one  bough  to  another.  Violets 
peeped  about  the  roots  of  trees,  and  all  the  world  was 
young  again.  But  here  was  only  stone  beneath  their 
feet;  and  about  them  showed  the  high  walls  and  the 
lead-sheathed  towers  and  the  parapets  and  the  sunk 
windows  of  Guillaume's  chateau.  There  was  no  color 
anywhere  save  gray;  and  Raimbaut  and  Biatritz  were 
aging  people  now.  It  seemed  to  him  that  they  were 
the  wraiths  of  those  persons  who  had  loved  each  other 
at  Montferrat;  and  that  the  walls  about  them  and  the 
leaden  devils  who  grinned  from  every  waterspout  and 
all  those  dark  and  narrow  windows  were  only  part  of 
some  magic  picture,  such  as  a  sorceress  may  momen- 

45 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


tarily  summon  out  of  smoke-wreaths,  as  he  had  seen 
Zoraida  do  very  long  ago. 

This  woman  might  have  been  a  wraith  in  verity,  for 
she  was  clothed  throughout  in  white,  save  for  the  pon- 
derous gold  girdle  about  her  middle.  A  white  gorget 
framed  the  face  which  was  so  pinched  and  shrewd 
and  strange;  and  she  peered  into  the  well,  smiling 
craftily. 

"I  was  thinking  death  was  like  this  well/'  said 
Biatritz,  without  any  cessation  of  her  singular  employ- 
ment— "so  dark  that  we  may  see  nothing  clearly  save 
one  faint  gleam  which  shows  us,  or  which  seems  to 
show  us,  where  rest  is.  Yes,  yes,  this  is  that  chaplet 
which  you  won  in  the  tournament  at  Montferrat  when 
we  were  young.  Pearls  are  the  symbol  of  tears,  we 
read.  But  we  had  no  time  for  reading  then,  no  time 
for  anything  except  to  be  quite  happy.  .  .  .  You  saw 
this  morning's  work.  Raimbaut,  were  Satan  to  go 
mad  he  would  be  such  a  fiend  as  this  Guillaume  de 
Baux  who  is  our  master!" 

"Ay,  the  man  is  as  cruel  as  my  old  opponent,  Mour- 
zoufle,"  Sire  Raimbaut  answered,  with  a  patient  shrug. 
"It  is  a  great  mystery  why  such  persons  should  win 
all  which  they  desire  of  this  world.  We  can  but 
recognize  that  it  is  for  some  sufficient  reason."  Then 
he  talked  with  her  concerning  the  aforementioned  in- 
famous emperor  of  the  East,  against  whom  the  old 
knight  had  fought,  and  of  Enrico  Dandolo  and  of 
King  Boniface,  dead  brother  to  Madona  Biatritz,  and 
of  much  remote,  outlandish  adventuring  oversea. 

46 


BELHS     CAVALIERS 


Of  Zoraida  he  did  not  speak.  And  Biatritz,  in  turn, 
told  him  of  that  one  child  which  she  had  borne  her 
husband,  Prince  Conrat — a  son  who  died  in  infancy; 
and  she  spoke  of  this  dead  baby,  who  living  would 
have  been  their  monarch,  with  a  sweet  quietude  that 
wrung  the  old  knight's  heart. 

Thus  these  spent  people  sat  and  talked  for  a  long 
while,  the  talk  veering  anywhither  just  as  chance  di- 
rected. Blurred  gusts  of  song  and  laughter  would 
come  to  them  at  times  from  the  hall  where  Guillaume 
de  Baux  drank  with  his  courtiers,  and  these  would 
break  the  tranquil  flow  of  speech.  Then,  unvexedly, 
the  gentle  voice  of  the  speaker,  were  it  his  or  hers, 
would  resume. 

She  said :    "They  laugh.    We  are  not  merry." 

"No,"  he  replied;  "I  am  not  often  merry.  There 
was  a  time  when  love  and  its  service  kept  me  in 
continuous  joy,  as  waters  invest  a  fish.  I  woke  from 
a  high  dream.  .  .  .  And  then,  but  for  the  fear  of 
seeming  cowardly,  I  would  have  extinguished  my  life 
as  men  blow  out  a  candle.  Vanity  preserved  me,  sheer 
vanity!"  He  shrugged,  spreading  his  hard  lean  hands. 
"Belhs  Cavaliers,  I  grudged  my  enemies  the  pleasure 
of  seeing  me  forgetful  of  valor  and  noble  enterprises. 
And  so,  since  then,  I  have  served  Heaven,  in  default 
of  you." 

"I  would  not  have  it  otherwise,"  she  said,  half  as  in 
wonder;  "I  would  not  have  you  be  quite  sane  like 
other  men.  And  I  believe,"  she  added — still  with  her 

47 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


wise  smile — "you  have  derived  a  deal  of  comfort,  off 
and  on,  from  being  heart-broken." 

He  replied  gravely:  "A  man  may  always,  if  he 
will  but  take  the  pains,  be  tolerably  content  and  rise 
in  worth,  and  yet  dispense  with  love.  He  has  only 
to  guard  himself  against  baseness,  and  concentrate  his 
powers  on  doing  right.  Thus,  therefore,  when  for- 
tune failed  me,  I  persisted  in  acting  to  the  best  of  my 
ability.  Though  I  had  lost  my  lands  and  my  loved 
lady,  I  must  hold  fast  to  my  own  worth.  Without  a 
lady  and  without  acreage,  it  was  yet  in  my  power  to 
live  a  cleanly  and  honorable  life;  and  I  did  not  wish 
to  make  two  evils  out  of  one." 

"Assuredly,  I  would  not  have  you  be  quite  sane  like 
other  men,"  she  repeated.  "It  would  seem  that  you 
have  somehow  blundered  through  long  years,  preserv- 
ing always  the  ignorance  of  a  child,  and  the  blindness 
of  a  child.  I  cannot  understand  how  this  is  possible; 
nor  can  I  keep  from  smiling  at  your  high-flown  no- 
tions; and  yet, — I  envy  you,  Raimbaut." 

Thus  the  afternoon  passed,  and  the  rule  of  Prince 
Guillaume  was  made  secure.  His  supper  was  worthily 
appointed,  for  Guillaume  loved  color  and  music  and 
beauty  of  every  kind,  and  was  on  this,  the  day  of  his 
triumph,  in  a  prodigal  humor.  Many  lackeys  in 
scarlet  brought  in  the  first  course,  to  the  sound  of 
exultant  drums  and  pipes,  with  a  blast  of  trumpets 
and  a  waving  of  banners,  so  that  all  hearts  were 
uplifted,  and  Guillaume  jested  with  harsh  laughter. 
48 


BELHS      CAVALIERS 


But  Raimbaut  de  Vaquieras  was  not  mirthful,  for 
he  was  remembering  a  boy  whom  he  had  known  of 
very  long  ago.  He  was  swayed  by  an  odd  fancy,  as 
the  men  sat  over  their  wine,  and  jongleurs  sang  and 
performed  tricks  for  their  diversion,  that  this  boy, 
so  frank  and  excellent,  as  yet  existed  somewhere ;  and 
that  the  Raimbaut  who  moved  these  shriveled  hands 
before  him,  on  the  table  there,  was  only  a  sad  dream 
of  what  had  never  been.  It  troubled  him,  too,  to  see 
how  grossly  these  soldiers  ate,  for,  as  a  person  of 
refinement,  an  associate  of  monarch s,  Sire  Raimbaut 
when  the  dishes  were  passed  picked  up  his  meats 
between  the  index-  and  the  middle-finger  of  his  left 
hand,  and  esteemed  it  infamous  manners  to  dip  any 
other  fingers  into  the  gravy. 

Guillatfme  had  left  the  Warriors'  Hall.  Philibert 
was  drunk,  and  half  the  men-at-arms  were  snoring 
among  the  rushes,  when  at  the  height  of  their  festivity 
Makrisi  came.  He  plucked  his  master  by  the  sleeve. 

A  swarthy,  bearded  Angevin  was  singing.  His  song 
was  one  of  old  Sire  Raimbaut's  famous  canzons  in 
honor  of  Belhs  Cavaliers.  The  knave  was  singing 
blithely : 

Pus  mos  Belhs  Cavaliers  grazitz 
E  joys  m'es  lunhatz  e  faiditz, 
Don  no  m'  venra  jamais  conortz; 
Per  qu'es  mayer  I'ira  e  plus  fortz — 

The  Saracen  had  said  nothing.  He  showed  a  jew- 
eled dagger,  and  the  knight  arose  and  followed  him  out 

49 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


of  that  uproarious  hall.  Raimbaut  was  bitterly  per- 
turbed, though  he  did  not  know  for  what  reason,  as 
Makrisi  led  him  through  dark  corridors  to  the  dull- 
gleaming  arras  of  Prince  Guillaume's  apartments.  In 
this  corridor  was  an  iron  lamp  swung  from  the  ceiling, 
and  now,  as  this  lamp  swayed  slightly  and  burned  low, 
the  tiny  flame  leaped  clear  of  the  wick  and  was  extin- 
guished, and  darkness  rose  about  them. 

Raimbaut  said :  "What  do  you  want  of  me?  Whose 
blood  is  on  that  knife?" 

"Have  you  forgotten  it  is  Walburga's  Eve?" 
Makrisi  said.  Raimbaut  did  not  regret  he  could  not 
see  his  servant's  countenance.  "Time  was  we  named 
it  otherwise  and  praised  another  woman  than  a  Saxon 
wench,  but  let  the  new  name  stand.  It  is  Walburga's 
Eve,  that  little,  little  hour  of  evil!  and  all  over  the 
world  surges  the  full  tide  of  hell's  desire,  and  mischief 
is  a-making  now,  apace,  apace,  apace.  People  moan 
in  their  sleep,  and  many  pillows  are  pricked  by  needles 
that  have  sewed  a  shroud.  Cry  Eman  hetan  now, 
messire!  for  there  are  those  to-night  who  find  the  big 
cathedrals  of  your  red-roofed  Christian  towns  no  more 
imposing  than  so  many  pimples  on  a  butler's  chin, 
because  they  ride  so  high,  so  very  high,  in  this  brave 
moonlight.  Full-tide,  full-tide !"  Makrisi  said,  and  his 
voice  jangled  like  a  bell  as  he  drew  aside  the  curtain 
so  that  the  old  knight  saw  into  the  room  beyond. 

It  was  a  place  of  many  lights,  which,  when  thus 
suddenly  disclosed,  blinded  him  at  first.  Then  Raim- 
baut perceived  Guillaume  lying  a-sprawl  across  an 
50 


B  ELHS     CAVALIERS 

oaken  chest.  The  Prince  had  fallen  backward  and  lay 
in  this  posture,  glaring  at  the  intruders  with  horrible 
eyes  which  did  not  move  and  would  not  ever  move 
again.  His  breast  was  crimson,  for  some  one  had 
stabbed  him.  A  woman  stood  above  the  corpse  and 
lighted  yet  another  candle  while  Raimbaut  de  Va- 
quieras  waited  motionless.  A  hand  meant  only  to 
bestow  caresses  brushed  a  lock  of  hair  from  this 
woman's  eyes  while  he  waited.  The  movements  of 
this  hand  were  not  uncertain,  but  only  quivered  some- 
what, as  a  taut  wire  shivers  in  the  wind,  while  Raim- 
baut de  Vaquieras  waited  motionless. 

"I  must  have  lights,  I  must  have  a  host  of  candles 
to  assure  me  past  any  questioning  that  he  is  dead.  The 
man  is  of  deep  cunning.  I  think  he  is  not  dead  even 
now."  Lightly  Biatritz  touched  the  Prince's  breast. 
"Strange,  that  this  wicked  heart  should  be  so  tranquil 
when  there  is  murder  here  to  make  it  glad !  Nay,  very 
certainly  this  Guillaume  de  Baux  will  rise  and  laugh 
in  his  old  fashion  before  he  speaks,  and  then  I  shall 
be  afraid.  But  I  am  not  afraid  as  yet.  I  am  afraid 
of  nothing  save  the  dark,  for  one  cannot  be  merry  in 
the  dark." 

Raimbaut  said:  "This  is  Belhs  Cavaliers  whom  I 
have  loved  my  whole  life  through.  Therefore  I  do 
not  doubt.  Pardieu,  I  do  not  even  doubt,  who  know 
she  is  of  matchless  worth." 

"Wherein  have  I  done  wrong,  Raimbaut?"  She 
came  to  him  with  fluttering  hands.  "Why,  but  look 
you,  the  man  had  laid  an  ambuscade  in  the  marsh, 

5* 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


and  he  meant  to  kill  you  there  to-night  as  you  rode 
for  Vaquieras.  He  told  me  of  it,  told  me  how  it  was 

for  that  end  alone  he  lured  you  into  Venaissin " 

Again  she  brushed  the  hair  back  from  her  forehead. 
"Raimbaut,  I  spoke  of  God  and  knightly  honor,  and 
the  man  laughed.  No,  I  think  it  was  a  fiend  who  sat 
so  long  beside  the  window  yonder,  whence  one  may 
see  the  marsh.  There  were  no  candles  in  the  room. 
The  moonlight  was  upon  his  evil  face,  and  I  could 
think  of  nothing,  of  nothing  that  Has  been  since 
Adam's  time,  except  our  youth,  Raimbaut.  And  he 
smiled  fixedly,  like  a  white  image,  because  my  misery 
amused  him.  Only,  when  I  tried  to  go  to  you  to  warn 
you,  he  leaped  up  stiffly,  making  a  mewing  noise.  He 
caught  me  by  the  throat  so  that  I  could  not  scream. 
Then  while  we  struggled  in  the  moonlight  your  Mak- 

risi  came  and  stabbed  him " 

"Nay,  I  but  fetched  this  knife,  messire."    Makrisi 
seemed  to  love  that  bloodied  knife. 

Biatritz  proudly  «aid :    "The  man  lies,  Raimbaut." 
"What  need  to  tell  me  that,  Belhs  Cavaliers?" 
And  the  Saracen  shrugged.    "It  is  very  true  I  lie/' 
he  said.    "As  among  friends,  I  may  confess  I  killed 
the  Prince.    But  for  the  rest,  take  notice  both  of  you, 
I  mean  to  lie  intrepidly." 

Raimbaut  remembered  how  his  mother  had  given 
each  of  two  lads  an  apple,  and  he  had  clamored  for 
Guillaume's,  as  children  do,  and  Guillaume  had 
changed  with  him.  It  was  a  trivial  happening  to  re- 
member after  fifty  years ;  but  Guillaume  was  dead,  and 
52 


BELHS     CAVALIERS 


this  hacked  flesh  was  Raimbaut's  flesh  in  part,  and  the 
thought  of  Raimbaut  would  never  trouble  Guillaume 
de  Baux  any  more.  In  addition  there  was  a  fire  of 
juniper  wood  and  frankincense  upon  the  hearth,  and 
the  room  smelt  too  cloyingly  of  be-drugging  sweet- 
ness. Then  on  the  walls  were  tapestries  which  depicted 
Merlin's  Dream,  so  that  everywhere  recoiling  women 
smiled  with  bold  eyes;  and  here  their  wantonness 
seemed  out  of  place. 

"Listen,"  Makrisi  was  saying;  "listen,  for  the  hour 
strikes.  At  last,  at  last !"  he  cried,  with  a  shrill  whine 
of  malice. 

Raimbaut  said,  dully:  "Oh,  I  do  not  under- 
stand  " 

"And  yet  Zoraida  loved  you  once!  loved  you  as 
people  love  where  I  was  born!"  The  Saracen's  voice 
had  altered.  His  speech  was  like  the  rustle  of  papers. 
"You  did  not  love  Zoraida.  And  so  it  came  about 
that  upon  Walburga's  Eve,  at  midnight,  Zoraida 
hanged  herself  beside  your  doorway.  Thus  we  love 
where  I  was  born.  .  .  .  And  I,  I  cut  the  rope — with 
my  left  hand.  I  had  my  other  arm  about  that  frozen 
thing  which  yesterday  had  been  Zoraida,  you  under- 
stand, so  that  it  might  not  fall.  And  in  the  act  a  tear 
dropped  from  that  dead  woman's  cheek  and  wetted 
my  forehead.  Ice  is  not  so  cold  as  was  that  tear.  .  .  . 
Ho,  that  tear  did  not  fall  upon  my  forehead  but  on  my 
heart,  because  I  loved  that  dancing-girl,  Zoraida,  as 
you  do  this  princess  here.  I  think  you  will  under- 

53 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


stand/'  Makrisi  said,  calmly  as  one  who  states  a 
maxim. 

The  Sire  de  Vaquieras  replied,  in  the  same  tone: 
"I  understand.  You  have  contrived  my  death?" 

"Ey,  messire,  would  that  be  adequate?  I  could  have 
managed  that  any  hour  within  the  last  score  of  years. 
Oh  no!  for  I  have  studied  you  carefully.  Oh  no! 
instead,  I  have  contrived  this  plight.  For  the  Prince 
of  Orange  is  manifestly  murdered.  Who  killed  him? 
— why,  Madona  Biatritz,  and  none  other,  for  I  will 
swear  to  it.  I,  I  will  swear  to  it,  who  saw  it  done. 
Afterward  both  you  and  I  must  be  questioned  upon 
the  rack,  as  possibly  concerned  in  the  affair,  and 
whether  innocent  or  guilty  we  must  die  very  horribly. 
Such  is  the  gentle  custom  of  your  Christian  country 
when  a  prince  is  murdered.  That  is  not  the  point 
of  the  jest,  however.  For  first  Sire  Philibert  will  put 
this  woman  to  the  Question  by  Water,  until  she  con- 
fesses her  confederates,  until  she  confesses  that  every 
baron  whom  Philibert  distrusts  was  one  of  them.  Oh 
yes,  assuredly  they  will  thrust  a  hollow  cane  into  the 
mouth  of  your  Biatritz,  and  they  will  pour  water  a 
little  by  a  little  through  this  cane,  until  she  confesses 
what  they  desire.  Ha,  Philibert  will  see  to  this  con- 
fession! And  through  this  woman's  torment  he  will 
rid  himself  of  every  dangerous  foe  he  has  in  Venais- 
sin.  You  must  stand  by  and  wait  your  turn.  You 
must  stand  by,  in  fetters,  and  see  this  done — you,  you, 
my  master ! — you,  who  love  this  woman  as  I  loved  that 
dead  Zoraida  who  was  not  fair  enough  to  please  you  !f> 
54 


B  E  LH  S     CAVALIERS 


Raimbaut,  trapped,  impotent,  cried  out:  "This  is 

not  possible "  And  for  all  that,  he  knew  the 

Saracen  to  be  foretelling  the  inevitable. 

Makrisi  went  on,  quietly :  "After  the  Question  men 
will  parade  her,  naked  to  the  middle,  through  all 
Orange,  until  they  reach  the  Marketplace,  where  will 
be  four  horses.  One  of  these  horses  they  will  harness 
to  each  arm  and  leg  of  your  Biatritz.  Then  they  will 
beat  these  horses.  These  will  be  strong  horses.  They 
will  each  run  in  a  different  direction/' 

This  infamy  also  was  certain.  Raimbaut  foresaw 
what  he  must  do.  He  clutched  the  dagger  which 
Makrisi  fondled.  "Belhs  Cavaliers,  this  fellow  speaks 
the  truth.  Look  now,  the  moon  is  old — is  it  not 
strange  to  know  it  will  outlive  us?" 

And  Biatritz  came  close  to  Sire  Raimbaut  and  said : 
"I  understand.  If  I  leave  this  room  alive  it  will  pur- 
chase a  hideous  suffering  for  my  poor  body,  it  will 
bring  about  the  ruin  of  many  brave  and  innocent 
chevaliers.  I  know.  I  would  perforce  confess  all 
that  the  masked  men  bade  me.  I  know,  for  in  Prince 
Conrat's  time  I  have  seen  persons  who  had  been  put  to 

the  Question "  She  shuddered ;  and  she  re-began, 

without  any  agitation:  "Give  me  the  knife,  Raim- 
baut." 

"Pardieu!  but  I  may  not  obey  you  for  this  once," 
he  answered,  "since  we  are  informed  by  those  in  holy 
orders  that  all  such  as  lay  violent  hands  upon  them- 
selves must  suffer  eternally."  Then,  kneeling,  he  cried, 
in  an  extremity  of  adoration :  "Oh,  I  have  served  you 

55 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


all  my  life.  You  may  not  now  deny  me  this  last 
service.  And  while  I  talk  they  dig  your  grave!  O 
blind  men,  making  the  new  grave,  take  heed  lest  that 
grave  be  too  narrow,  for  already  my  heart  is  breaking 
in  my  body.  I  have  drunk  too  deep  of  sorrow.  And 
yet  I  may  not  fail  you,  now  that  honor  and  mercy 
and  my  love  for  you  demand  I  kill  you  before  I  also 
die — in  such  a  fashion  as  this  fellow  speaks  of." 

She  did  not  dispute  this.  How  could  she  when  it 
was  an  axiom  in  all  Courts  of  Love  that  Heaven  held 
dominion  in  a  lover's  heart  only  as  an  underling  of  the 
man's  mistress? 

And  so  she  said,  with  a  fond  smile:  "It  is  your 
demonstrable  privilege.  I  would  not  grant  it,  dear, 
were  my  weak  hands  as  clean  as  yours.  Oh,  but  it  is 
long  you  have  loved  me,  and  it  is  faithfully  you  have 
served  Heaven,  and  my  heart  too  is  breaking  in  my 
body  now  that  your  service  ends!" 

And  he  demanded,  wearily:  "When  we  were  boy 
and  girl  together  what  had  we  said  if  any  one  had 
told  us  this  would  be  the  end?" 

"We  would  have  laughed.  It  is  a  long  while  since 
those  children  laughed  at  Montferrat.  .  .  .  Not  yet, 
not  yet !"  she  said.  "Ah,  pity  me,  tried  champion,  for 
even  now  I  am  almost  afraid  to  die." 

She  leaned  against  the  window  yonder,  shuddering, 
staring  into  the  night.  Dawn  had  purged  the  east  of 
stars.  Day  was  at  hand,  the  day  whose  noon  she  might 
not  hope  to  witness.  She  noted  this  incuriously.  Then 

56 


B  E  LH  S     CAVALIERS 


Biatritz  came  to  him,  very  strangely  proud,  and  yet  all 
tenderness. 

"See,  now,  Raimbaut!  because  I  have  loved  you  as 
I  have  loved  nothing  else  in  life,  I  will  not  be  unworthy 
of  your  love.  Strike  and  have  done." 

Raimbaut  de  Vaquieras  raised  an  already  bloodied 
dagger.  As  emotion  goes,  he  was  bankrupt.  He  had 
no  longer  any  dread  of  hell,  because  he  thought  that, 
a  little  later,  nothing  its  shrewdest  overseer  could  plan 
would  have  the  power  to  vex  him.  She,  waiting, 
smiled.  Makrisi,  seated,  stretched  his  legs,  put  finger- 
tips together  with  the  air  of  an  attendant  amateur. 
This  was  better  than  he  had  hoped.  In  such  a  posture 
they  heard  a  bustle  of  armored  men,  and  when  all 
turned,  saw  how  a  sword  protruded  through  the  arras. 

"Come  out,  Guillaume!"  people  were  shouting. 
"UnKennel,  dog!  Out,  out,  and  die!"  To  such  a 
heralding  Mahi  de  Vernoil  came  into  the  room  with 
mincing  steps  such  as  the  man  affected  in  an  hour  of 
peril.  He  first  saw  what  a  grisly  burden  the  chest 
sustained.  "Now,  by  the  Face!"  he  cried,  "if  he  that 
cheated  me  of  quieting  this  filth  should  prove  to  be  of 
gentle  birth  I  will  demand  of  him  a  duel  to  the  death!" 
The  curtains  were  ripped  from  their  hangings  as  he 
spoke,  and  behind  him  the  candlelight  was  reflected  by 
the  armor  of  many  followers. 

Then  de  Vernoil  perceived  Raimbaut  de  Vaquieras, 
and  the  spruce  little  man  bowed  ceremoniously.  All 
were  still.  Composedly,  like  a  lieutenant  before  his 
captain,  Mahi  narrated  how  these  hunted  remnants  of 

57 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Lovain's  army  had,  as  a  last  cast,  that  night  invaded 
the  chateau,  and  had  found,  thanks  to  the  festival,  its 
men-at-arms  in  uniform  and  inefficient  drunkenness. 
"My  tres  beau  sire,"  Messire  de  Vernoil  ended,  "will 
you  or  nill  you,  Venaissin  is  yours  this  morning. 
My  knaves  have  slain  Philibert  and  his  bewildered  fel- 
low-tipplers with  less  effort  than  is  needed  to  drown 
as  many  kittens." 

And  his  followers  cried,  as  upon  a  signal:  "Hail, 
Prince  of  Orange!" 

It  was  so  like  the  wonder-working  of  a  dream — this 
sudden  and  heroic  uproar — that  old  Raimbaut  de  Va- 
quieras  stood  reeling,  near  to  intimacy  with  fear  for 
the  first  time.  He  waited  thus,  with  both  hands  pressed 
before  his  eyes.  He  waited  thus  for  a  long  while, 
because  he  was  not  used  to  find  chance  dealing  kindlily 
with  him.  Later  he  saw  that  Makrisi  had  vanished  in 
the  tumult,  and  that  many  people  awaited  his  speaking. 

The  lord  of  Venaissin  began :  "You  have  done  me 
a  great  service,  Messire  de  Vernoil.  As  recompense, 
I  give  you  what  I  may.  I  freely  yield  you  all  my  right 
in  Venaissin.  Oh  no,  kingcraft  is  not  for  me.  I  daily 
see  and  hear  of  battles  won,  cities  beleaguered,  high 
towers  overthrown,  and  ancient  citadels  and  new  walls 
leveled  with  the  dust.  I  have  conversed  with  many 
kings,  the  directors  of  these  events,  and  they  were 
not  happy  people.  Yes,  yes,  I  have  witnessed  divers 
happenings,  for  I  am  old.  ...  I  have  found  nothing 
which  can  serve  me  in  place  of  honor." 

He  turned  to  Dona  Biatritz.    It  was  as  if  they  were 

58 


B  E  LH  S     CAVALIERS 


alone.  "Belhs  Cavaliers,"  he  said,  "I  had  sworn  fealty 
to  this  Guillaume.  He  violated  his  obligations;  but 
that  did  not  free  me  of  mine.  An  oath  is  an  oath. 
I  was,  and  am  to-day,  sworn  to  support  his  cause,  and 
to  profit  in  any  fashion  by  its  overthrow  would  be  an 
abominable  action.  Nay,  more,  were  any  of  his  ad- 
herents alive  it  would  be  my  manifest  duty  to  join 
them  against  our  preserver,  Messire  de  Vernoil.  This 
necessity  is  very  happily  spared  me.  I  cannot,  though, 
in  honor  hold  any  fief  under  the  supplanter  of  my 
liege-lord.  I  must,  therefore,  relinquish  Vaquieras  and 
take  eternal  leave  of  Venaissin.  I  will  not  lose  the 
right  to  call  myself  your  servant!"  he  cried  out — "and 
that  which  is  noblest  in  the  world  must  be  served 
fittingly.  And  so,  Belhs  Cavaliers,  let  us  touch  palms 
and  bid  farewell,  and  never  in  this  life  speak  face  to 
face  of  trivial  happenings  which  we  two  alone  remem- 
ber. For  naked  of  lands  and  gear  I  came  to  you — a 
prince's  daughter— very  long  ago,  and  as  nakedly  I 
now  depart,  so  that  I  may  retain  the  right  to  say,  'AH 
my  life  long  I  served  my  love  of  her  according  to  my 
abilities,  whole-heartedly  and  with  clean  hands.' ' 

"Yes,  yes!  you  must  depart  from  Venaissin,"  said 
Dona  Biatritz.  A  capable  woman,  she  had  no  sympa- 
thy with  his  exquisite  points  of  honor,  and  yet  loved 
him  all  the  more  because  of  what  seemed  to  her  his 
surpassing  folly.  She  smiled,  somewhat  as  mothers 
do  in  humoring  an  unreasonable  boy.  "We  will  go  to 
my  nephew's  court  at  Montferrat,"  she  said.  "He 
will  willingly  provide  for  his  old  aunt  and  her  husband. 

59 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


And  you  may  still  make  verses — at  Montferrat,  where 
we  lived  verses,  once,  Raimbaut." 

Now  they  gazed  full  upon  each  other.  Thus  they 
stayed,  transfigured,  neither  seeming  old.  Each  had 
forgotten  that  unhappiness  existed  anywhere  in  the 
whole  world.  The  armored,  blood-stained  men  about 
them  were  of  no  more  importance  than  were  those 
wantons  in  the  tapestry.  Without,  dawn  throbbed  in 
heaven.  Without,  innumerable  birds  were  raising  that 
glad,  piercing,  hurried  morning-song  which  very 
anciently  caused  Adam's  primal  waking,  to  behold  his 
mate. 


60 


BALTHAZAR'S  DAUGHTER 


"A  curious  preference  for  the  artificial  should  be  men- 
tioned as  characteristic  of  ALESSANDRO  DE  MEDICI'S  poetry. 
For  his  century  was  anything  but  artless;  the  fjreat 
commonplaces  that  form  the  main  stock  of  human 
thought  were  no  longer  in  their  first  flush,  and  he 
addressed  a  people  no  longer  childish.  .  .  .  Unquestion- 
ably his  fancies  were  fantastic,  anti-natural,  bordering  on 
hallucination,  and  they  betray  a  desire  for  impossible 
novelty;  but  it  is  allowable  to  prefer  them  to  the  sickly 
simplicity  of  those  so-called  poems  that  embroider  with 
old  faded  wools  upon  the  canvas  of  worn-out  truisms, 
trite,  trivial  and  idiotically  sentimental  patterns." 


Let  me  have  dames  and  damsels  richly  clad 

To  feed  and  tend  my  mirth, 
Singing  by  day  and  night  to  make  me  glad ; 

Let  me  have  fruitful  gardens  of  great  girth 

Fill'd  with  the  strife  of  birds, 
With  water-springs,  and  beasts  that  house  i'  the  earth. 

Let  me  seem  Solomon  for  lore  of  words, 
Samson  for  strength,  for  beauty  Absalom. 

Knights  as  my  serfs  be  given ; 
And  as  I  will,  let  music  go  and  come; 
Till,  when  I  will,  I  will  to  enter  Heaven. 

ALESSANDRO  DE  MEDICI.    Madrigal, 
from  D.  G.  Rossetti's  version. 


BALTHAZAR'S    DAUGHTER 


GRACIOSA  was  Balthazar's  youngest  child,  a 
white,  slim  girl  with  violet  eyes  and  strange 
pale  hair  which  had  the  color  and  glitter  of 
Stardust.  "Some  day  at  court/1  her  father  often 
thought  complacently,  "she,  too,  will  make  a  good 
match."  He  was  a  necessitous  lord,  a  smiling,  supple 
man  who  had  already  marketed  two  daughters  to  his 
advantage.  But  Graciosa's  time  was  not  yet  mature 
in  the  year  of  grace  1533,  for  the  girl  was  not  quite 
sixteen.  So  Graciosa  remained  in  Balthazar's  big 
cheerless  house  and  was  tutored  in  all  needful  accom- 
plishments. She  was  proficient  in  the  making  of  pre- 
serves and  unguents,  could  play  the  harpsichord  and 
the  virginals  acceptably,  could  embroider  an  altarcloth 
to  admiration,  and,  in  spite  of  a  trivial  lameness  in 
walking,  could  dance  a  coranto  or  a  saraband  against 
any  woman  between  two  seas. 

Now  to  the  north  of  Balthazar's  home  stood  a  tall 
forest,  overhanging  both  the  highway  and  the  river 
whose  windings  the  highway  followed.  Graciosa  was 
very  often  to  be  encountered  upon  the  outskirts  of 
these  woods.  She  loved  the  forest,  whose  tranquillity 

63 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


bred  dreams,  but  was  already  a  woman  in  so  far  that 
she  found  it  more  interesting  to  watch  the  highway. 
Sometimes  it  would  be  deserted  save  for  small  purple 
butterflies  which  fluttered  about  as  if  in  continuous 
indecision,  and  rarely  ascended  more  than  a  foot  above 
the  ground.  But  people  passed  at  intervals — as  now  a 
page,  who  was  a  notably  fine  fellow,  clothed  in  ash- 
colored  gray,  with  slashed,  puffed  sleeves,  and  having 
a  heron's  feather  in  his  cap ;  or  a  Franciscan  with  his 
gown  tucked  up  so  that  you  saw  how  the  veins  on  his 
naked  feet  stood  out  like  the  carvings  on  a  vase ;  or  a 
farmer  leading  a  calf;  or  a  gentleman  in  a  mantle  of 
squirrel's  fur  tiding  beside  a  wonderful  proud  lady, 
whose  tiny  hat  was  embroidered  with  pearls.  It  was 
all  very  interesting  to  watch,  it  was  like  turning  over 
the  leaves  of  a  book  written  in  an  unknown  tongue 
and  guessing  what  the  pictures  meant,  because  these 
people  were  intent  upon  their  private  avocations,  in 
which  you  had  no  part,  and  you  would  never  see  them 
any  more. 

Then  destiny  took  a  hand  in  the  affair  and  Guido 
came.  He  reined  his  gray  horse  at  the  sight  of  her 
sitting  by  the  wayside  and  deferentially  inquired  how 
far  it  might  be  to  the  nearest  inn.  Graciosa  told  him. 
He  thanked  her  and  rode  on.  That  was  all,  but  the 
appraising  glance  of  this  sedate  and  handsome  burgher 
obscurely  troubled  the  girl  afterward. 

Next  day  he  came  again.  He  was  a  jewel-mer- 
chant, he  told  her,  and  he  thought  it  within  the  stretch 
of  possibility  that  my  lord  Balthazar's  daughter  might 
64 


DAUGHTER 


wish  to  purchase  some  of  his  wares.  She  viewed  them 
with  admiration,  chaffered  thriftily,  and  finally  bought 
a  topaz,  dug  from  Mount  Zabarca,  Guido  assured  her, 
which  rendered  its  wearer  immune  to  terrors  of 
any  kind. 

Very  often  afterward  these  two  met  on  the  outskirts 
of  the  forest  as  Guido  rode  between  the  coast  and  the 
hill-country  about  his  vocation.  Sometimes  he  laugh- 
ingly offered  her  a  bargain,  on  other  days  he  paused 
to  exhibit  a  notable  gem  which  he  had  procured  for 
this  or  that  wealthy  amateur.  Count  Eglamore,  the 
young  Duke's  favorite  yonder  at  court,  bought  most 
of  them,  it  seemed.  "The  nobles  complain  against  this 
upstart  Eglamore  very  bitterly,"  said  Guido,  "but  we 
merchants  have  no  quarrel  with  him.  He  buys  too 
lavishly." 

"I  trust  I  shall  not  see  Count  Eglamore  when  I  go 
to  court,"  said  Graciosa,  meditatively;  "and,  indeed, 
by  that  time,  my  father  assures  me,  some  honest  gen- 
tleman will  have  contrived  to  cut  the  throat  of  this 
abominable  Eglamore."  Her  father's  people,  it  should 
be  premised,  had  been  at  bitter  feud  with  the  favorite 
ever  since  he  detected  and  punished  the  conspiracy  of 
the  Marquis  of  Cibo,  their  kinsman.  Then  Graciosa 
continued :  "Nevertheless,  I  shall  see  many  beautiful 
sights  when  I  am  taken  to  court.  .  .  .  And  the  Duke, 
too,  you  tell  me,  is  an  amateur  of  gems." 

"Eh,  madonna,  I  wish  that  you  could  see  his  jewels," 
cried  Guido,  growing  fervent;  and  he  lovingly  cata- 
logued a  host  of  lapidary  marvels. 

6s 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


"I  hope  that  I  shall  see  these  wonderful  jewels 
when  I  go  to  court,"  said  Graciosa  wistfully. 

"Duke  Alessandro,"  he  returned,  his  dark  eyes 
strangely  mirthful,  "is,  as  I  take  it,  a  catholic  lover  of 
beauty  in  all  its  forms.  So  he  will  show  you  his  gems, 
very  assuredly,  and,  worse  still,  he  will  make  verses 
in  your  honor.  For  it  is  a  preposterous  feature  of 
Duke  Alessandro's  character  that  he  is  always  making 
songs." 

"Oh,  and  such  strange  songs  as  they  are,  too,  Guido. 
Who  does  not  know  them?" 

"I  am  not  the  best  possible  judge  of  his  verses* 
merit,"  Guido  estimated,  drily.  "But  I  shall  never 
understand  how  any  singer  at  all  came  to  be  locked 
in  such  a  prison.  I  fancy  that  at  times  the  paradox 
puzzles  even  Duke  Alessandro." 

"And  is  he  as  handsome  as  people  report?" 

Then  Guido  laughed  a  little.  "Tastes  differ,  of 
course.  But  I  think  your  father  will  assure  you, 
madonna,  that  no  duke  possessing  such  a  zealous  tax- 
collector  as  Count  Eglamore  was  ever  in  his  lifetime 
considered  of  repulsive  person." 

"And  is  he  young?" 

"Why,  as  to  that,  he  is  about  of  an  age  with  me, 
and  in  consequence  old  enough  to  be  far  more  sensible 
than  either  of  us  is  ever  likely  to  be,"  said  Guido;  and 
began  to  talk  of  other  matters. 

But  presently  Graciosa  was  questioning  him  again 
as  to  the  court,  whither  she  was  to  go  next  year  and 
enslave  a  marquis,  or,  at  worst,  an  opulent  baron.  Her 
66 


BALTHAZAR'S    DAUGHTER 


thoughts  turned  toward  the  court's  predominating 
figure.  "Tell  me  of  Eglamore,  Guido." 

"Madonna,  some  say  that  Eglamore  was  a  brewer's 
son.  Others — and  your  father's  kinsmen  in  particular 
— insist  that  he  was  begot  by  a  devil  in  person,  just 
as  Merlin  was,  and  Plato  the  philosopher,  and  puis- 
sant Alexander.  Nobody  knows  anything  about  his 
origin."  Guido  was  sitting  upon  the  ground,  his  open 
pack  between  his  knees.  Between  the  thumb  and  fore- 
finger of  each  hand  he  held  caressingly  a  string  of 
pearls  which  he  inspected  as  he  talked.  "Nobody," 
he  idly  said,  "nobody  is  very  eager  to  discuss  Count 
Eglamore' s  origin  now  that  Eglamore  has  become  in- 
dispensable to  Duke  Alessandro.  Yes,  it  is  thanks  to 
Eglamore  that  the  Duke  has  ample  leisure  and  needful 
privacy  for  the  pursuit  of  recreations  which  are 
reputed  to  be  curious." 

"I  do  not  understand  you,  Guido."  Graciosa  was 
all  wonder. 

"It  is  perhaps  as  well,"  the  merchant  said,  a  trifle 
sadly.  Then  Guido  shrugged.  "To  be  brief,  madonna, 
business  annoys  the  Duke.  He  finds  in  this  Eglamore 
an  industrious  person  who  affixes  seals,  draughts 
proclamations,  makes  treaties,  musters  armies,  devises 
pageants,  and  collects  revenues,  upon  the  whole,  quite 
as  efficiently  as  Alessandro  would  be  capable  of  doing 
these  things.  So  Alessandro  makes  verses  and  amuses 
himself  as  his  inclinations  prompt,  and  Alessandro's 
people  are  none  the  worse  off  on  account  of  it." 

"Heigho,  I  foresee  that  I  shall  never  fall  in  love  with 

67 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


the  Duke,"  Graciosa  declared.  "It  is  unbefitting  and 
it  is  a  little  cowardly  for  a  prince  to  shirk  the  duties 
of  his  station.  Now,  if  I  were  Duke  I  would  grant 
my  father  a  pension,  and  have  Eglamore  hanged,  and 
purchase  a  new  gown  of  silvery  green,  in  which  I 
would  be  ravishingly  beautiful,  and  afterward — Why, 
what  Would  you  do  if  you  were  Duke,  Messer  Guido?" 

"What  would  I  do  if  I  were  Duke?"  he  echoed. 
"What  would  I  do  if  I  were  a  great  lord  instead  of  a 
tradesman?  I  think  you  know  the  answer,  madonna." 

"Oh,  you  would  make  me  your,  duchess,  of  course. 
That  is  quite  understood,"  said  Graciosa,  with  the 
lightest  of  laughs.  "But  I  was  speaking  seriously, 
Guido." 

Guido  at  that  considered  her  intently  for  a  half- 
minute.  His  countenance  was  of  portentous  gravity, 
but  in  his  eyes  she  seemed  to  detect  a  lurking  imp- 
ishness. 

"And  it  is  not  a  serious  matter  that  a  peddler  of 
crystals  should  have  dared  to  love  a  nobleman's  daugh- 
ter? You  are  perfectly  right.  That  I  worship  you  is 
an  affair  which  does  not  concern  any  person  save 
myself  in  any  way  whatsoever,  although  I  think  that 
knowledge  of  the  fact  would  put  your  father  to  the 
trouble  of  sharpening  his  dagger.  .  .  .  Indeed,  I  am 
not  certain  that  I  worship  you,  for  in  order  to  adore 
whole-heartedly,  the  idolater  must  believe  his  idol  to 
be  perfect.  Now,  your  nails  are  of  an  ugly  shape, 
like  that  of  little  fans;  your  mouth  is  too  large;  and  I 
have  long  ago  perceived  that  you  are  a  trifle  lame  in 
68 


BALTHAZAR'S    DAUGHTER 


spite  of  your  constant  care  to  conceal  the  fact.  I  do 
not  admire  these  faults,  for  faults  they  are  undoubt- 
edly. Then,  too,  I  know  you  are  vain  and  self-seek- 
ing, and  look  forward  contentedly  to  the  time  when 
your  father  will  transfer  his  ownership  of  such  phys- 
ical attractions  as  heaven  gave  you  to  that  nobleman 
who  offers  the  highest  price  for  them.  It  is  true  you 
have  no  choice  in  the  matter,  but  you  will  participate 
in  a  monstrous  bargain,  and  I  would  prefer  to  have 
you  exhibit  distaste  for  it."  And  with  that  he  returned 
composedly  to  inspection  of  his  pearls. 

"And  to  what  end,  Guido?"  It  was  the  first  time 
Graciosa  had  completely  waived  the  reticence  of  a 
superior  caste.  You  saw  that  the  child's  parted  lips 
were  tremulous,  and  you  divined  her  childish  fits  of 
dreading  that  glittering,  inevitable  court-life  shared 
with  an  unimaginable  husband. 

But  Guido  only  grumbled  whimsically.  "I  am  afraid 
that  men  do  not  always  love  according  to  the  strict 
laws  of  logic.  I  desire  your  happiness  above  all  things ; 
yet  to  see  you  so  abysmally  untroubled  by  anything 
that  troubles  me  is  another  matter." 

"But  I  am  not  untroubled,  Guido "  she  began 

swiftly.  Graciosa  broke  off  in  speech,  shrugged, 
flashed  a  smile  at  him.  "For  I  cannot  fathom  you, 
Ser  Guido,  and  that  troubles  me.  Yes,  I  am  very  fond 
of  you,  and  yet  I  do  not  trust  you.  You  tell  me  you 
love  me  greatly.  It  pleases  me  to  have  you  say  this. 
You  perceive  I  am  very  candid  this  morning,  Messer 
Guido.  Yes,  it  pleases  me,  and  I  know  that  for  the 

69 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


t 

sake  of  seeing  me  you  daily  endanger  your  life,  for  if 
my  father  heard  of  our  meetings  he  would  have  you 
killed.  You  would  not  incur  such  hare-brained  risks 
unless  you  cared  very  greatly ;  and  yet,  somehow,  I  do 
not  believe  it  is  altogether  for  me  you  care." 

Then  Guido  was  in  train  to  protest  an  all-mastering 
and  entirely  candid  devotion,  but  he  was  interrupted. 

"Most  women  have  these  awkward  intuitions," 
spoke  a  melodious  voice,  and  turning,  Graciosa  met 
the  eyes  of  the  intruder.  This  magnificent  young  man 
had  a  proud  and  bloodless  face  which  contrasted 
sharply  with  his  painted  lips  and  cheeks.  In  the  con- 
tour of  his  protruding  mouth  showed  plainly  his 
negroid  ancestry.  His  scanty  beard,  as  well  as  his 
frizzled  hair,  was  the  color  of  dead  grass.  He  was 
sumptuously  clothed  in  white  satin  worked  with  silver, 
and  around  his  cap  was  a  gold  chain  hung  with  dia- 
monds. Now  he  handed  his  fringed  riding-gloves  to 
Guido  to  hold. 

"Yes,  madonna,  I  suspect  that  Eglamore  here  cares 
greatly  for  the  fact  that  you  are  Lord  Balthazar's 
daughter,  and  cousin  to  the  late  Marquis  of  Cibo.  For 
Cibo  has  many  kinsmen  at  court  who  still  resent  the 
circumstance  that  the  matching  of  his  wits  against 
Eglamore's  earned  for  Cibo  a  deplorably  public  demise. 
So  they  conspire  against  Eglamore  with  vexatious  in- 
dustry, as  an  upstart,  as  a  nobody  thrust  over  people 
of  proven  descent,  and  Eglamore  goes  about  in  hourly 
apprehension  of  a  knife-thrust.  If  he  could  make  a 
match  with  you,  though,  your  father — thrifty  man ! — 
70 


BALTHAZAR'S    DAUGHTER 


would  be  easily  appeased.  Your  cousins,  those  proud, 
grumbling  Castel-Franchi,  Strossi  and  Valori,  would 
not  prove  over-obdurate  toward  a  kinsman  who,  what- 
ever his  past  indiscretions,  has  so  many  pensions  and 
offices  at  his  disposal.  Yes,  honor  would  permit  a 
truce,  and  Eglamore  could  bind  them  to  his  interests 
within  ten  days,  and  be  rid  of  the  necessity  of  sleeping 
in  chain  armor.  .  .  .  Have  I  not  unraveled  the  scheme 
correctly,  Eglamore?" 

"Your  highness  was  never  lacking  in  penetration," 
replied  the  other  in  a  dull  voice.  He  stood  motionless, 
holding  the  gloves,  his  shoulders  a  little  bowed  as  if 
under  some  physical  load.  His  eyes  were  fixed  upon 
the  ground.  He  divined  the  change  in  Graciosa's  face 
and  did  not  care  to  see  it. 

"And  so  you  are  Count  Eglamore,"  said  Graciosa  in 
a  sort  of  whisper.  "That  is  very  strange.  I  had 
thought  you  were  my  friend,  Guido.  But  I  forget. 
I  must  not  call  you  Guido  any  longer."  She  gave  a 
little  shiver  here.  He  stayed  motionless  and  did  not 
look  at  her.  "I  have  often  wondered  what  manner  of 
man  you  were.  So  it  was  you — whose  hand  I  touched 
just  now — you  who  poisoned  Duke  Cosmo,  you  who 
had  the  good  cardinal  assassinated,  you  who  betrayed 
the  brave  lord  of  Faenza !  Oh,  yes,  they  openly  accuse 
you  of  every  imaginable  crime — this  patient  Eglamore, 
this  reptile  who  has  crept  into  his  power  through  filthy 
passages.  It  is  very  strange  you  should  be  capable 
of  so  much  wickedness,  for  to  me  you  seem  only  a 
sullen  lackey." 

7* 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


He  winced  and  raised  his  eyes  at  this.  His  face 
remained  expressionless.  He  knew  these  accusations 
at  least  to  be  demonstrable  lies,  for  as  it  happened  he 
had  never  found  his  advancement  to  hinge  upon  the 
commission  of  the  crimes  named.  But  even  so,  the 
past  was  a  cemetery  he  did  not  care  to  have  revivified. 

"And  it  was  you  who  detected  the  Marquis  of  Cibo's 
conspiracy.  Tebaldeo  was  my  cousin,  Count  Egla- 
more,  and  I  loved  him.  We  were  reared  together. 
We  used  to  play  here  in  these  woods,  and  I  remember 
how  Tebaldeo  once  fetched  me  a  wren's  nest  from 
that  maple  yonder.  I  stood  just  here.  I  was  weeping 
because  I  was  afraid  he  would  fall.  If  he  had  fallen 
and  been  killed,  it  would  have  been  the  luckier  for 
him,"  Graciosa  sighed.  "They  say  that  he  conspired. 
I  do  not  know.  I  only  know  that  by  your  orders, 
Count  Eglamore,  my  playmate  Tebaldeo  was  fastened 
upon  a  Saint  Andrew's  cross  and  his  arms  and  legs 
were  each  broken  in  two  places  with  an  iron  bar. 
Then  your  servants  took  Tebaldeo,  still  living,  and 
laid  him  upon  a  carriage-wheel  which  was  hung  upon 
a  pivot.  The  upper  edge  of  this  wheel  was  cut  with 
very  fine  teeth  like  those  of  a  saw,  so  that  his  agony 
might  be  complete.  Tebaldeo's  poor  mangled  legs  were 
folded  beneath  his  body  so  that  his  heels  touched  the 
back  of  his  head,  they  tell  me.  In  such  a  posture  he 
died  very  slowly  while  the  wheel  turned  very  slowly 
there  in  the  sunlit  market-place,  and  flies  buzzed  greed- 
ily about  him,  and  the  shopkeepers  took  holiday  in 
order  to  watch  Tebaldeo  die — the  same  Tebaldeo  who 
72 


BALTHAZAR    S     DAUGHTER 


once  fetched  me  a  wren's  nest  from  yonder  maple." 
Eglamore  spoke  now.  "I  gave  orders  for  the  Mar- 
quis of  Cibo's  execution.  I  did  not  devise  the  manner 
of  his  death.  The  punishment  for  Cibo's  crime  was 
long  ago  fixed  by  our  laws.  Cibo  plotted  to  kill  the 
Duke.  Cibo  confessed  as  much." 

But  the  girl  waved  this  aside.  "And  then  you  plan 
this  masquerade.  You  plan  to  make  me  care  for 
you  so  greatly  that  even  when  I  know  you  to  be 
Count  Eglamore  I  must  still  care  for  you.  You  plan 
to  marry  me,  so  as  to  placate  Tebaldeo's  kinsmen,  so 
as  to  bind  them  to  your  interests.  It  was  a  fine  bold 
stroke  of  policy,  I  know,  to  use  me  as  a  stepping-stone 
to  safety — but  was  it  fair  to  me?"  Her  voice  rose 
now  a  little.  She  seemed  to  plead  with  him.  "Look 
you,  Count  Eglamore,  I  was  a  child  only  yesterday. 
I  have  never  loved  any  man.  But  you  have  loved  many 
women,  I  know,  and  long  experience  has  taught  you 
many  ways  of  moving  a  woman's  heart.  Oh,  was  it 
fair,  was  it  worth  while,  to  match  your  skill  against 
my  ignorance?  Think  how  unhappy  I  would  be  if 
even  now  I  loved  you,  and  how  I  would  loathe  myself. 
.  .  .  But  I  am  getting  angry  over  nothing.  Nothing 
has  happened  except  that  I  have  dreamed  in  idle 
moments  of  a  brave  and  comely  lover  who  held  his 
head  so  high  that  all  other  women  envied  me,  and 
now  I  have  awakened." 

Meanwhile,  it  was  with  tears  in  his  eyes  that  the 
young  man  in  white  had  listened  to  her  quiet  talk, 
for  you  could  nowhere  have  found  a  nature  more 

73 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


readily  sensitive  than  his  to  all  the  beauty  and  wonder 
which  life,  as  if  it  were  haphazardly,  produces  every 
day.  He  pitied  this  betrayed  child  quite  ineffably,  be- 
cause in  her  sorrow  she  was  so  pretty. 

So  he  spoke  consolingly.  "Fie,  Donna  Graciosa, 
you  must  not  be  too  harsh  with  Eglamore.  It  is  his 
nature  to  scheme,  and  he  weaves  his  plots  as  inevitably 
as  the  spider  does  her  web.  Believe  me,  it  is  wiser  to 
forget  the  rascal — as  I  do — until  there  is  need  of  him ; 
and  I  think  you  will  have  no  more  need  to  consider 
Eglamore's  trickeries,  for  you  are  very  beautiful, 
Graciosa." 

He  had  drawn  closer  to  the  girl,  and  he  brought  a 
cloying  odor  of  frangipani,  bergamot  and  vervain. 
His  nostrils  quivered,  his  face  had  taken  on  an  odd 
pinched  look,  for  all  that  he  smiled  as  over  some 
occult  jest.  Graciosa  was  a  little  frightened  by  his 
bearing,  which  was  both  furtive  and  predatory. 

"Oh,  do  not  be  offended,  for  I  have  some  rights  to 
say  what  I  desire  in  these  parts.  For,  Dei  gratia,  I  am 
the  overlord  of  these  parts,  Graciosa — a  neglected 
prince  who  wondered  over  the  frequent  absences  of 
his  chief  counselor  and  secretly  set  spies  upon  him. 
Eglamore  here  will  attest  as  much.  Or  if  you  cannot 
believe  poor  Eglamore  any  longer,  I  shall  have  other 
witnesses  within  the  half-hour.  Oh,  yes,  they  are  to 
meet  me  here  at  noon — some  twenty  crop-haired  stal- 
wart cut-throats.  They  will  come  riding  upon  beau- 
tiful broad-chested  horses  covered .  with  red  velvet 
trappings  that  are  hung  with  little  silver  bells  which 
74 


DAUGHTER 


jingle  delightfully.  They  will  come  very  soon,  and 
then  we  will  ride  back  to  court." 

Duke  Alessandro  touched  his  big  painted  mouth 
with  his  forefinger  as  if  in  fantastic  mimicry  of  a  man 
imparting  a  confidence. 

"I  think  that  I  shall  take  you  with  me,  Graciosa,  for 
you  are  very  beautiful.  You  are  as  slim  as  a  lily 
and  more  white,  and  your  eyes  are  two  purple  mirrors 
in  each  of  which  I  see  a  tiny  image  of  Duke  Alessan- 
dro. The  woman  I  loved  yesterday  was  a  big  splendid 
wench  with  cheeks  like  apples.  It  is  not  desirable  that 
women  should  be  so  large.  All  women  should  be 
little  creatures  that  fear  you.  They  should  have  thin, 
plaintive  voices,  and  in  shrinking  from  you  be  as  slight 
to  the  touch  as  a  cobweb.  It  is  not  possible  to  love  a 
woman  ardently  unless  you  comprehend  how  easy  it 
would  be  to  murder  her." 

"God,  God !"  said  Count  Eglamore,  very  softly,  for 
he  was  familiar  with  the  look  which  had  now  come 
into  Duke  Alessandro's  face.  Indeed,  all  persons 
about  court  were  quick  to  notice  this  odd  pinched  look, 
like  that  of  a  traveler  nipped  at  by  frosts,  and  people 
at  court  became  obsequious  within  the  instant  in  deal- 
ing with  the  fortunate  woman  who  had  aroused  this 
look,  Count  Eglamore  remembered. 

And  the  girl  did  not  speak  at  all,  but  stood  motion- 
less, staring  in  bewildered,  pitiable,  childlike  fashion, 
and  the  color  had  ebbed  from  her  countenance. 

Alessandro  was  frankly  pleased.  "You  fear  me,  do 
you  not,  Graciosa?  See,  now,  when  I  touch  your 

75 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


hand  it  is  soft  and  cold  as  a  serpent's  skin,  and  you 
shudder.  I  am  very  tired  of  women  who  love  me,  of 
all  women  with  bold,  hungry  eyes.  To  you  my  touch 
will  always  be  a  martyrdom,  you  will  always  loathe 
me,  and  therefore  I  shall  not  weary  of  you  for  a  long 
while.  Come,  Graciosa.  Your  father  shall  have  all 
the  wealth  and  state  that  even  his  greedy  imaginings 
can  devise,  so  long  as  you  can  contrive  to  loathe  me. 
We  will  find  you  a  suitable  husband.  You  shall  have 
flattery  and  titles,  gold  and  fine  glass,  soft  stuffs  and 
superb  palaces  such  as  are  your  beauty's  due  hence- 
forward." 

He  glanced  at  the  peddler's  pack,  and  shrugged. 
"So  Eglamore  has  been  wooing  you  with  jewels! 
You  must  see  mine,  dear  Graciosa.  It  is  not  merely 
an  affair  of  possessing,  as  some  emperors  do,  all  the 
four  kinds  of  sapphires,  the  twelve  kinds  of  emeralds, 
the  three  kinds  of  rubies,  and  many  extraordinary 
pearls,  diamonds,  cymophanes,  beryls,  green  peridots, 
tyanos,  sandrastra,  and  fiery  cinnamon-stones" — he 
enumerated  them  with  the  tender  voice  of  their  lover — 
"for  the  value  of  these  may  at  least  be  estimated. 
Oh,  no,  I  have  in  my  possession  gems  which  have  not 
their  fellows  in  any  other  collection,  gems  which  have 
not  even  a  name  and  the  value  of  which  is  incalcu- 
lable— strange  jewels  that  were  shot  from  inaccessible 
mountain  peaks  by  means  of  slings,  jewels  engendered 
by  the  thunder,  jewels  taken  from  the  heart  of  the 
Arabian  deer,  jewels  cut  from  the  brain  of  a  toad  and 
the  eyes  of  serpents,  and  even  jewels  that  are  authen- 


BALTHAZAR'S    DAUGHTER 


tically  known  to  have  fallen  from  the  moon.  We 
will  select  the  rarest,  and  have  a  pair  of  slippers 
encrusted  with  them,  in  which  you  shall  dance  for  me." 

"Highness,"  cried  Eglamore,  with  anger  and  terror 
at  odds  in  his  breast,  "Highness,  I  love  this  girl !" 

"Ah,  then  you  cannot  ever  be  her  husband,"  Duke 
Alessandro  returned.  "You  would  have  suited  other- 
wise. No,  no,  we  must  seek  out  some  other  person 
of  discretion.  It  will  all  be  very  amusing,  for  I  think 
that  she  is  now  quite  innocent,  as  pure  as  the  high 
angels  are.  See,  Eglamore,  she  cannot  speak,  she  stays 
still  as  a  lark  that  has  been  taken  in  a  snare.  It  will 
be  very  marvelous  to  make  her  as  I  am.  ..."  He 
meditated,  as,  obscurely  aware  of  opposition,  his  shoul- 
ders twitched  fretfully,  and  momentarily  his  eyes 
lightened  like  the  glare  of  a  cannon  through  its  smoke. 
"You  made  a  beast  of  me,  some  long- faced  people  say. 
Beware  lest  the  beast  turn  and  rend  you." 

Count  Eglamore  plucked  aimlessly  at  his  chin. 
Then  he  laughed  as  a  dog  yelps.  He  dropped  the 
gloves  which  he  had  held  till  this,  deliberately,  as  if 
the  act  were  a  rite.  His  shoulders  straightened  and 
purpose  seemed  to  flow  into  the  man.  "No,"  he  said 
quietly,  "I  will  not  have  it.  It  was  not  altogether  I 
who  made  a  brain-sick  beast  of  you,  my  prince;  but 
even  so,  I  have  never  been  too  nice  to  profit  by  your 
vices.  I  have  taken  my  thrifty  toll  of  abomination, 
I  have  stood  by  contentedly,  not  urging  you  on,  yet 
never  trying  to  stay  you,  as  you  waded  deeper  and 
ever  deeper  into  the  filth  of  your  debaucheries,  be- 

77 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


cause  meanwhile  you  left  me  so  much  power.  Yes,  in 
some  part  it  is  my  own  handiwork  which  is  my  ruin. 
I  accept  it.  Nevertheless,  you  shall  not  harm  this 
child." 

"I  venture  to  remind  you,  Eglamore,  that  I  am  still 
the  master  of  this  duchy."  Alessandro  was  languidly 
amused,  and  had  begun  to  regard  his  adversary  with 
real  curiosity. 

"Oh,  yes,  but  that  is  nothing  to  me.  At  court  you 
are  the  master.  At  court  I  have  seen  mothers  raise 
the  veil  from  their  daughters'  faces,  with  smiles  that 
were  more  loathsome  than  the  grimaces  of  a  fiend, 
because  you  happened  to  be  passing.  But  here  in  these 
woods,  your  highness,  I  see  only  the  woman  I  love 
arid  the  man  who  has  insulted  her." 

"This  is  very  admirable  fooling,"  the  Duke  con- 
sidered. "So  all  the  world  is  changed  and  Pandarus 
is  transformed  into  Hector?  These  are  sonorous 
words,  Eglamore,  but  with  what  deeds  do  you  propose 
to  back  them?" 

"By  killing  you,  your  highness." 

"So!"  said  the  Duke.  "The  farce  ascends  in  inter- 
est." He  drew  with  a  flourish,  with  actual  animation, 
for  sottish,  debauched  and  power-crazed  as  this  man 
was,  he  came  of  a  race  to  whom  danger  was  a  cordial. 
"Very  luckily  a  sword  forms  part  of  your  disguise, 
so  let  us  amuse  ourselves.  It  is  always  diverting  to 
kill,  and  if  by  any  chance  you  kill  me  I  shall  at  least 
be  rid  of  the  intolerable  knowledge  that  to-morrow 

78 


will  be  just  like  to-day."  The  Duke  descended  blithely 
into  the  level  road  and  placed  himself  on  guard. 

Then  both  men  silently  went  about  the  business  in 
hand.  Both  were  oddly  calm,  almost  as  if  preoccu- 
pied by  some  more  important  matter  to  be  settled  later. 
The  two  swords  clashed,  gleamed  rigidly  for  an  in- 
stant, and  then  their  rapid  interplay,  so  far  as  vision 
went,  melted  into  a  flickering  snarl  of  silver,  for  the 
sun  was  high  and  each  man's  shadow  was  huddled 
under  him.  Then  Eglamore  thrust  savagely  and  in  the 
act  trod  the  edge  of  a  puddle,  and  fell  ignominiously 
prostrate.  His  sword  was  wrenched  ten  feet  from 
him,  for  the  Duke  had  parried  skilfully.  Eglamore 
lay  thus  at  Alessandro's  mercy. 

"Well,  well !"  the  Duke  cried  petulantly,  "and  am  I 
to  be  kept  waiting  forever?  You  were  a  thought 
quicker  in  obeying  my  caprices  yesterday.  Get  up,  you 
muddy  lout,  and  let  us  kill  each  other  with  some 
pretension  of  adroitness." 

Eglamore  rose,  and,  sobbing,  caught  up  his  sword 
and  rushed  toward  the  Duke  in  an  agony  of  shame 
and  rage.  His  attack  now  was  that  of  a  frenzied 
animal,  quite  careless  of  defense  and  desirous  only  of 
murder.  Twice  the  Duke  wounded  him,  but  it  was 
Alessandro  who  drew  backward,  composedly  hindering 
the  brutal  onslaught  he  was  powerless  to  check.  Then 
Eglamore  ran  him  through  the  chest  and  gave  vent  to 
a  strangled,  growling  cry  as  Alessandro  fell.  Egla- 
more wrenched  his  sword  free  and  grasped  it  by  the 
blade  so  that  he  might  stab  the  Duke  again  and  again. 

79 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


He  meant  to  hack  the  abominable  flesh,  to  slash  and 
mutilate  that  haughty  mask  of  infamy,  but  Graciosa 
clutched  his  weapon  by  the  hilt. 

The  girl  panted,  and  her  breath  came  thick.  "He 
gave  you  your  life." 

Eglamore  looked  up.  She  leaned  now  upon  his 
shoulder,  her  face  brushing  his  as  he  knelt  over  the 
unconscious  Duke;  and  Eglamore  found  that  at  her 
dear  touch  all  passion  had  gone  out  of  him. 

"Madonna,"  he  said  equably,  "the  Duke  is  not  yet 
dead.  It  is  impossible  to  let  him  live.  You  may  think 
he  voiced  only  a  caprice  just  now.  I  think  so  too,  but 
I  know  the  man,  and  I  know  that  all  this  madman's 
whims  are  ruthless  and  irresistible.  Living,  Duke 
Alessandro's  appetites  are  merely  whetted  by  opposi- 
tion, so  much  so  that  he  finds  ho  pleasures  sufficiently 
piquant  unless  they  have  God's  interdiction  as  a  sauce. 
Living,  he  will  make  of  you  his  plaything,  and  a  little 
later  his  broken,  soiled  and  castby  plaything.  It  is 
therefore  necessary  that  I  kill  Duke  Alessandro." 

She  parted  from  him,  and  he  too  rose  to  his  feet. 

"And  afterward,"  she  said  quietly,  "and  afterward 
you  must  die  just  as  Tebaldeo  died." 

"That  is  the  law,  madonna.  But  whether  Alessan- 
dro enters  hell  to-day  or  later,  I  am  a  lost  man." 

"Oh,  that  is  very  true,"  she  said.  "A  moment  since 
you  were  Count  Eglamore,  whom  every  person  feared. 
Now  there  is  not  a  beggar  in  the  kingdom  who  would 
change  lots  with  you,  for  you  are  a  friendless  and 
hunted  man  in  peril  of  dreadful  death.  But  even  so, 
80 


DAUGHTER 


you  are  not  penniless,  Count  Eglatnore,  for  these 
jewels  here  which  formed  part  of  your  masquerade  are 
of  great  value,  and  there  is  a  world  outside.  The 
frontier  is  not  two  miles  distant.  You  have  only  to 
escape  into  the  hill-country  beyond  the  forest,  and  you 
need  not  kill  Duke  Alessandro  after  all.  I  would  have 
you  go  hence  with  hands  as  clean  as  possible." 

"Perhaps  I  might  escape."  He  found  it  quaint  to 
note  how  calm  she  was  and  how  tranquilly  his  own 
thoughts  ran.  "But  first  the  Duke  must  die,  because 
I  dare  not  leave  you  to  his  mercy." 

"How  does  that  matter?"  she  returned.  "You  know 
very  well  that  my  father  intends  to  market  me  as  best 
suits  his  interests.  Here  I  am  so  much  merchandise. 
The  Duke  is  as  free  as  any  other  man  to  cry  a  bar- 
gain." He  would  have  spoken  in  protest,  but  Graciosa 
interrupted  wearily:  "Oh,  yes,  it  is  to  this  end  only 
that  we  daughters  of  Duke  Alessandro's  vassals  are 
nurtured,  just  as  you  told  me — eh,  how  long  ago! — 
that  such  physical  attractions  as  heaven  accords  us 
may  be  marketed.  And  I  do  not  see  how  a  wedding 
can  in  any  way  ennoble  the  transaction  by  causing  it  to 
profane  a  holy  sacrament.  Ah,  no,  Balthazar's  daugh- 
ter was  near  attaining  all  that  she  had  been  taught  to 
desire,  for  a  purchaser  came  and  he  bid  lavishly.  You 
know  very  well  that  my  father  would  have  been 
delighted.  But  you  must  need  upset  the  bargain.  'No, 
I  will  not  have  it !'  Count  Eglamore  must  cry.  It  cost 
you  very  highly  to  speak  those  words.  I  think  it 
would  have  puzzled  my  father  to  hear  those  words 

Si 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


at  which  so  many  fertile  lands,  stout  castles,  well-tim- 
bered woodlands,  herds  of  cattle,  gilded  coaches,  liv- 
eries and  curious  tapestries,  fine  clothing  and  spiced 
foods,  all  vanished  like  a  puff  of  smoke.  Ah,  yes,  my 
father  would  have  thought  you  mad." 

"I  had  no  choice,"  he  said,  and  waved  a  little  ges- 
ture of  impotence.  He  spoke  as  with  difficulty,  almost 
wearily.  "I  love  you.  It  is  a  theme  on  which  I  do 
not  embroider.  So  long  as  I  had  thought  to  use  you 
as  an  instrument  I  could  woo  fluently  enough.  To-day 
I  saw  that  you  were  frightened  and  helpless — oh,  quite 
helpless.  And  something  changed  in  me.  I  knew  for 
the  first  time  that  I  loved  you  and  that  I  was  not  clean 
as  you  are  clean.  What  it  was  of  passion  and  horror, 
of  despair  and  adoration  and  yearning,  which  strug- 
gled in  my  being  then  I  cannot  tell  you.  It  spurred 
me  to  such  action  as  I  took, — but  it  has  robbed  me  of 
sugared  eloquence,  it  has  left  me  chary  of  speech.  It 
is  necessary  that  I  climb  very  high  because  of  my  love 
for  you,  and  upon  the  heights  there  is  silence." 

And  Graciosa  meditated.  "Here  I  am  so  much 
merchandise.  Heigho,  since  I  cannot  help  it,  since 
bought  and  sold  I  must  be,  one  day  or  another,  at 
least  I  will  go  at  a  noble  price.  Yet  I  do  not  think  I 
am  quite  worth  the  value  of  these  castles  and  lands 
and  other  things  which  you  gave  up  because  of  me,  so 
that  it  will  be  necessary  to  make  up  the  difference, 
dear,  by  loving  you  very  much." 

And  at  that  he  touched  her  chin,  gently  and  master- 
fully, for  Graciosa  would  have  averted  her  face,  and 
82 


DAUGHTER 


it  seemed  to  Eglamore  that  he  could  never  have  his 
fill  of  gazing  on  the  radiant,  shamed  tenderness  of 
Graciosa's  face.  "Oh,  my  girl  I"  he  whispered.  "Oh, 
my  wonderful,  worshiped,  merry  girl,  whom  God  has 
fashioned  with  such  loving  care!  you  who  had  only 
scorn  to  give  me  when  I  was  a  kingdom's  master! 
and  would  you  go  with  me  now  that  I  am  friendless 
and  homeless?" 

"But  I  shall  always  have  a  friend,"  she  answered — 
"a  friend  who  showed  me  what  Balthazar's  daughter 
was  and  what  love  is.  And  I  am  vain  enough  to 
believe  I  shall  not  ever  be  very  far  from  home  so  long 
as  I  am  near  to  my  friend's  heart." 

A  mortal  man  could  not  but  take  her  in  his  arms. 

"Farewell,  Duke  Alessandro!"  then  said  Eglamore; 
"farewell,  poor  clay  so  plastic  the  least  touch  remodels 
you!  I  had  a  part  in  shaping  you, so  bestial;  our  age, 
too,  had  a  part — our  bright  and  cruel  day,  wherein 
you  were  set  too  high.  Yet  for  me  it  would  perhaps 
have  proved  as  easy  to  have  made  a  learned  recluse 
of  you,  Alessandro,  or  a  bloodless  saint,  if  to  do  that 
had  been  as  patently  profitable.  For  you  and  all  your 
kind  are  so  much  putty  in  the  hands  of  circumspect 
fellows  such  as  I.  But  I  stood  by  and  let  our  poisoned 
age  conform  that  putty  into  the  shape  of  a  crazed 
beast,  because  it  took  that  form  as  readily  as  any 
other,  and  in  taking  it,  best  served  my  selfish  ends. 
Now  I  must  pay  for  that  sorry  shaping,  just  as,  I 
think,  you  too  must  pay  some  day.  And  so,  I  cry 
farewell  with  loathing,  but  with  compassion  also!" 

83 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Then  these  two  turned  toward  the  hills,  leaving  Duke 
Alessandro  where  he  lay  in  the  road,  a  very  lament- 
able figure  in  much  bloodied  finery.  They  turned 
toward  the  hills,  and  entered  a  forest  whose  ordering 
was  time's  contemporary,  and  where  there  was  no 
grandeur  save  that  of  the  trees. 

But  upon  the  summit  of  the  nearest  hill  they  paused 
and  looked  over  a  restless  welter  of  foliage  that 
glittered  in  the  sun,  far  down  into  the  highway.  It 
bustled  like  an  unroofed  ant-hill,  for  the  road  was 
alive  with  men  who  seemed  from  this  distance  very 
small.  Duke  Alessandro's  attendants  had  found  him 
and  were  clustered  in -a  hubbub  about  their  reviving 
master.  Dwarfish  Lorenzino  de  Medici  was  the  most 
solicitous  among  them. 

Beyond  was  the  broad  river,  seen  as  a  ribbon  of 
silver  now,  and  on  its  remoter  bank  the  leaded  roofs 
of  a  strong  fortress  glistened  like  a  child's  new  toy. 
Tilled  fields  showed  here  and  there,  no  larger  in 
appearance  than  so  many  outspread  handkerchiefs. 
Far  down  in  the  east  a  small  black  smudge  upon  the 
pearl-colored  and  vaporous  horizon  was  all  they  could 
discern  of  a  walled  city  filled  with  factories  for  the 
working  of  hemp  and  furs  and  alum  and  silk  and 
bitumen. 

"It  is  a  very  rich  and  lovely  land,"  said  Eglamore— 
"this  kingdom  which  a  half -hour  since  lay  in  the  hollow 
of  my  hand."  He  viewed  it  for  a  while,  and  not  with- 
out pensiveness.  Then  he  took  Graciosa's  hand  and 
looked  into  her  face,  and  he  laughed  joyously. 
84 


JUDITH'S   CREED 


"It  does  not  appear  that  the  age  thought  his  works 
worthy  of  posterity,  nor  that  this  great  poet  himself  levied 
any  ideal  tribute  on  future  times,  or  had  any  further 
prospect  than  of  present  popularity  and  present  profit. 
So  careless  was  he,  indeed,  of  fame,  that,  when  he  retired 
to  ease  and  plenty,  while  he  was  yet  little  declined  into 
the  vale  of  years,  and  before  he  could  be  disgusted  with 
fatigue  or  disabled  by  infirmity,  he  desired  only  that  in 
this  rural  quiet  he  who  had  so  long  mazed  his  imagination 
by  following  phantoms  might  at  last  be  cured  of  his  de- 
lirious ecstasies,  and  as  a  hermit  might  estimate  the  trans- 
actions of  the  world/' 


Now  my  charms  are  all  overthrown, 
And  what  strength  I  have's  my  own, 
Which  is  most  faint. 

Now  I  want 

Spirits  to  enforce,  art  to  enchant; 
And  my  ending  is  despair, 
Unless  I  be  relieved  by  prayer, 
Which  pierces  so,  that  it  assaults 
Mercy  itself,  and  frees  all  faults. 

As  you  from  crimes  would  pardon'd  be, 
Let  your  indulgence  set  me  free. 

WILLIAM  SHAKESPEARE.  Epilogue 
to  The  Tempest. 


JUDITH'S  CREED 


HE  was  hoping,  while  his  fingers  drummed  in 
unison  with  the  beat  of  his  verse,  that  this 
last  play  at  least  would  rouse  enthusiasm  in 
the  pit.    The  welcome  given  its  immediate  predecessors 
had  undeniably  been  tepid.     A  memorandum  at  his 
elbow  of  the  receipts  at  the  Globe  for  the  last  quarter 
showed  this  with  disastrous  bluntness;  and,  after  all, 
in   1609  a  shareholder  in  a  theater,  when  writing 
dramas  for  production  there,  was  ordinarily  subject  to 
more  claims  than  those  of  his  ideals. 

He  sat  in  a  neglected  garden  whose  growth  was  in 
reversion  to  primal  habits.  The  season  was  Septem- 
ber, the  sky  a  uniform  and  temperate  blue.  A  peach- 
tree,  laden  past  its  strength  with  fruitage,  made  about 
him  with  its  boughs  a  sort  of  tent.  The  grass  around 
his  writing-table  was  largely  hidden  by  long,  crinkled 
peach  leaves — some  brown  and  others  gray  as  yet — 
and  was  dotted  with  a  host  of  brightly-colored  peaches. 
Fidgeting  bees  and  flies  were  excavating  the  decayed 
spots  in  this  wasting  fruit,  from  which  emanated  a 
vinous  odor.  The  bees  hummed  drowsily,  their  indus- 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


try  facilitating  idleness  in  others.  It  was  curious — he 
meditated,  his  thoughts  straying  from  "an  uninhabited 
island" — how  these  insects  alternated  in  color  between 
brown  velvet  and  silver,  as  they  blundered  about  a 
flickering  tessellation  of  amber  and  dark  green  .  .  * 
in  search  of  rottenness.  .  r  . 

He  frowned.  Here  was  an  arid  forenoon  as  imagi- 
nation went.  A  seasoned  plagiarist  by  this,  he  opened 
a  book  which  lay  upon  the  table  among  several  others 
and  duly  found  the  chapter  entitled  Of  the  Can- 
nibals. 

"So,  so !"  he  said  aloud.  "  'It  is  a  nation/  would  I 
answer  Plato,  'that  has  no  kind  of  traffic,  no  knowledge 
of  letters ' "  And  with  that  he  sat  about  reshap- 
ing Montaigne's  conceptions  of  Utopia  into  verse.  He 
wrote — while  his  left  hand  held  the  book  flat — as 
orderly  as  any  county-clerk  might  do  in  the  recordance 
of  a  deed  of  sale. 

Midcourse  in  larceny,  he  looked  up  from  writing. 
He  saw  a  tall,  dark  lady  who  was  regarding  him  half- 
sorrowfully  and  half  as  in  the  grasp  of  some  occult 
amusement.  He  said  nothing.  He  released  the  tell- 
tale book.  His  eyebrows  lifted,  banteringly.  He  rose. 

He  found  it  characteristic  of  her  that  she  went 
silently  to  the  table  and  compared  the  printed  page 
with  what  he  had  just  written.  "So  nowadays  you 
have  turned  pickpocket  ?  My  poet,  you  have  altered/' 

He  said:  "Why,  yes.  When  you  broke  off  our 
friendship,  I  paid  you  the  expensive  compliment  of 
falling  very  ill.  They  thought  that  I  would  die.  They 
88 


JUDITH'S    CREED 


tell  me  even  to-day  I  did  not  die.  I  almost  question 
it."  He  shrugged.  "And  to-day  I  must  continue  to 
write  plays,  because  I  never  learned  any  other  trade. 
And  so,  at  need,  I  pilfer."  The  topic  did  not  seem 
much  to  concern  him. 

"Eh,  and  such  plays!"  the  woman  cried.  "My  poet, 
there  was  a  time  when  you  created  men  and  women 
as  glibly  as  Heaven  does.  Now  you  make  sugar-candy 
dolls/1 

"The  last  comedies  were  not  all  I  could  have 
wished,"  he  assented.  "In  fact,  I  got  only  some  £30 
clear  profit." 

"There  speaks  the  little  tradesman  I  most  hated  of 
all  persons  living!"  the  woman  sighed.  Now,  as  in 
impatience,  she  thrust  back  her  traveling-hood  and 
stood  bare-headed. 

Then  she  stayed  silent, — tall,  extraordinarily  pallid, 
and  with  dark,  steady  eyes.  Their  gaze  by  ordinary 
troubled  you,  as  seeming  to  hint  some  knowledge  to 
your  belittlement.  The  playmaker  remembered  that. 
Now  he,  a  reputable  householder,  was  wondering  what 
would  be  the  upshot  of  this  intrusion.  His  visitor,  as 
he  was  perfectly  aware,  had  little  patience  with  such 
moments  of  life  as  could  not  be  made  dramatic.  .  .  . 
He  was  recollecting  many  trifles,  now  his  mind  ran 
upon  old  times.  .  .  .  No,  no,  reflection  assured  him, 
to  call  her  beautiful  would  be,  and  must  always  have 
been,  an  exaggeration;  but  to  deny  the  exotic  and 
somewhat  sinister  charm  of  her,  even  to-day,  would 
be  an  absurdity. 

89 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


She  said,  abruptly:  "I  do  not  think  I  ever  loved 
you  as  women  love  men.  You  were  too  anxious  to 
associate  with  fine  folk,  too  eager  to  secure  a  patron — 
yes,  and  to  get  your  profit  of  him — and  you  were 
always  ill-at-ease  among  us.  Our  youth  is  so  long 
past,  and  we  two  are  so  altered  that  we,  I  think,  may 
speak  of  its  happenings  now  without  any  bitterness. 
I  hated  those  sordid,  petty  traits.  I  raged  at  your 
incessant  pretensions  to  gentility  because  I  knew  you 
to  be  so  much  more  than  a  gentleman.  Oh,  it  infuri- 
ated me — how  long  ago  it  was! — to  see  you  cringing 
to  the  Court  blockheads,  and  running  their  errands, 
and  smirkingly  pocketing  their  money,  and  wheedling 
them  into  helping  the  new  play  to  success.  You  com- 
plained I  treated  you  like  a  lackey;  it  was  not  unnat- 
ural when  of  your  own  freewill  you  played  the  lackey 
so  assiduously." 

He  laughed.  He  had  anatomized  himself  too  fre- 
quently and  with  too  much  dispassion  to  overlook 
whatever  tang  of  snobbishness  might  be  in  him;  and, 
moreover,  the  charge  thus  tendered  became  in  reality 
the  speaker's  apology,  and  hurt  nobody's  self-esteem. 

"Faith,  I  do  not  say  you  are  altogether  in  the 
wrong,"  he  assented.  "They  could  be  very  useful  to 
me — Pembroke,  and  Southampton,  and  those  others 
— and  so  I  endeavored  to  render  my  intimacy  accept- 
able. It  was  my  business  as  a  poet  to  make  my  play 
as  near  perfect  as  I  could;  and  this  attended  to,  com- 
mon-sense demanded  of  the  theater-manager  that  he 
derive  as  much  money  as  was  possible  from  its  repre- 
90 


JUDITH'S    CREED 


sentation.  What  would  you  have?  The  man  of  let- 
ters, like  the  carpenter  or  the  blacksmith,  must  live 
by  the  vending  of  his  productions,  not  by  the  eating 
of  them." 

The  woman  waved  this  aside. 

She  paced  the  grass  in  meditation,  the  peach  leaves 
brushing  her  proud  head — caressingly,  it  seemed  to 
him.  Later  she  came  nearer  in  a  brand-new  mood. 
She  smiled  now,  and  her  voice  was  musical  and 
thrilled  with  wonder.  "But  what  a  poet  Heaven  had 
locked  inside  this  little  parasite!  It  used  to  puzzle 
me."  She  laughed,  and  ever  so  lightly.  "Eh,  and 
did  you  never  understand  why  by  preference  I  talked 
with  you  at  evening  from  my  balcony  ?  It  was  because 
I  could  forget  you  then  entirely.  There  was  only  a 
voice  in  the  dark.  There  was  a  sorcerer  at  whose 
bidding  words  trooped  like  a  conclave  of  emperors,  and 
now  sang  like  a  bevy  of  linnets.  And  wit  and  fancy 
and  high  aspirations  and  my  love — because  I  knew 
then  that  your  love  for  me  was  splendid  and  divine — 
these  also  were  my  sorcerer's  potent  allies.  I  under- 
stood then  how  glad  and  awed  were  those  fabulous 
Greekish  queens  when  a  god  wooed  them.  Yes,  then  I 
understood.  How  long  ago  it  seems!" 

"Yes,  yes,"  he  sighed.  "In  that  full-blooded  season 
was  Guenevere  a  lass,  I  think,  and  Charlemagne  was 
not  yet  in  breeches." 

"And  when  there  was  a  new  play  enacted  I  was 
glad.  For  it  was  our  play  that  you  and  I  had  pol- 
ished the  last  line  of  yesterday,  and  all  these  people 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


wept  and  laughed  because  of  what  we  had  done.  And 

I  was  proud "  The  lady  shrugged  impatiently. 

"Proud,  did  I  say?  and  glad?  That  attests  how  woe- 
fully I  fall  short  of  you,  my  poet.  You  would  have 
found  some  magic  phrase  to  make  that  ancient  glory 
articulate,  I  know.  Yet, — did  I  ever  love  you?  I  do 
not  know  that.  I  only  know  I  sometimes  fear  you 
robbed  me  of  the  power  of  loving  any  other  man." 

He  raised  one  hand  in  deprecation.  "I  must  remind 
you,"  he  cried,  whimsically,  "that  a  burnt  child  dreads 
even  to  talk  of  fire." 

Her  response  was  a  friendly  nod.  She  came  yet 
nearer.  "What,"  she  demanded,  and  her  smile  was 
elfish,  "what  if  I  had  lied  to  you?  What  if  I  were 
hideously  tired  of  my  husband,  that  bluff,  Uolid  cap- 
tain? What  if  I  wanted  you  to  plead  with  me  as  in 
the  old  time?" 

He  said:  "Until  now  you  were  only  a  woman. 
Oh,  and  now,  my  dear,  you  are  again  that  resistless 
gipsy  who  so  merrily  beguiled  me  to  the  very  heart 
of  loss.  You  are  Love.  You  are  Youth.  You  are 
Comprehension.  You  are  all  that  I  have  had,  and  lost, 
and  vainly  hunger  for.  Here  in  this  abominable  vil- 
lage, there  is  no  one  who  understands — not  even  those 
who  are  more  dear  to  me  than  you  are.  I  know.  I 
only  spoil  good  paper  which  might  otherwise  be  profit- 
ably used  to  wrap  herrings  in,  they  think.  They  give 
me  ink  and  a  pen  just  as  they  would  give  toys  to  a 
child  who  squalled  for  them  too  obstinately.  And 
Poesy  is  a  thrifty  oracle  with  no  words  to  waste  upon 
92 


JUDITH'S    CREED 


the  deaf,  however  loudly  her  interpreter  cry  out  to 
her.  Oh,  I  have  hungered  for  you,  my  proud,  dark 
lady!"  the  playmaker  said. 

Afterward  they  stood  quite  silent.  She  was  not 
unmoved  by  his  outcry ;  and  for  this  very  reason  was 
obscurely  vexed  by  the  reflection  that  it  would  be  the 
essay  of  a  braver  man  to  remedy,  rather  than  to  la- 
ment, his  circumstances.  And  then  the  moment's  rap- 
ture failed  him. 

"I  am  a  sorry  fool,"  he  said ;  and  lightly  he  ran  on : 
"You  are  a  skilful  witch.  Yet  you  have  raised  the 
ghost  of  an  old  madness  to  no  purpose.  You  seek  a 
master-poet?  You  will  find  none  here.  Perhaps  I 
was  one  once.  But  most  of  us  are  poets  of  one  sort 
or  another  when  we  love.  Do  you  not  understand? 
To-day  I  do  not  love  you  any  more  than  I  do  Hecuba. 
Is  it  not  strange  that  I  should  tell  you  this  and  not 
be  moved  at  all?  Is  it  not  laughable  that  we  should 
stand  here  at  the  last,  two  feet  apart  as  things  physical 
go,  and  be  as  profoundly  severed  as  if  an  ocean  tum- 
bled between  us?" 

He  fell  to  walking  to  and  fro,  his  hands  behind  his 
back.  She  waited,  used  as  she  was  to  his  unstable 
temperament,  a  trifle  puzzled.  Presently  he  spoke : 

'There  was  a  time  when  a  master-poet  was  needed. 
He  was  found — nay,  rather  made.  Fate  hastily  caught 
up  a  man  not  very  different  from  the  run  of  men — 
one  with  a  taste  for  stringing  phrases  and  with  a 
comedy  or  so  to  his  discredit.  Fate  merely  bid  him 

93 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


love  a  headstrong  child  newly  released  from  the 
nursery." 

"We  know  her  well  enough,"  she  said.  "The  girl 
was  faithless,  and  tyrannous,  and  proud,  and  coquet- 
tish, and  unworthy,  and  false,  and  inconstant.  She 
was  black  as  hell  and  dark  as  night  in  both  her  per- 
son and  her  living.  You  were  not  niggardly  of 
vituperation." 

And  he  grimaced.  "Faith,"  he  replied,  "but  sonnets 
are  a  more  natural  form  of  expression  than  affidavits, 
and  they  are  made  effective  by  compliance  with  differ- 
ent rules.  I  find  no  flagrant  fault  with  you  to-day. 
You  were  a  child  of  seventeen,  the  darling  of  a  noble 
house,  and  an  actor — yes,  and  not  even  a  pre-eminent 
actor — a  gross,  poor  posturing  vagabond,  just  twice 
your  age,  presumed  to  love  you.  What  child  would 
not  amuse  herself  with  such  engaging  toys  ?  Vivacity 
and  prettiness  and  cruelty  are  the  ordinary  attributes 
of  kittenhood.  So  you  amused  yourself.  And  I  sub- 
mitted with  clear  eyes,  because  I  could  not  help  it. 
Yes,  I  who  am  by  nature  not  disposed  to  underesti- 
mate my  personal  importance — I  submitted,  because 
your  mockery  was  more  desirable  than  the  adoration 
of  any  other  woman.  And  all  this  helped  to  make  a 
master-poet  of  me.  Eh,  why  not,  when  such  mon- 
strous passions  spoke  through  me — as  if  some  implac- 
able god  elected  to  play  godlike  music  on  a  mounte- 
bank's lute?  And  I  made  admirable  plays.  Why  not, 
when  there  was  no  tragedy  more  poignant  than  mine  ? 
— and  where  in  any  comedy  was  any  figure  one-half 
94 


JUDITH'S    CREED 


so  ludicrous  as  mine  ?    Ah,  yes,  Fate  gained  her  ends, 
as  always." 

He  was  a  paunchy,  inconsiderable  little  man.  By 
ordinary  his  elongated  features  and  high,  bald  fore- 
head loaned  him  an  aspect  of  serene  and  axiom-based 
wisdom,  much  as  we  see  him  in  his  portraits;  but 
now  his  countenance  was  flushed  and  mobile.  Odd 
passions  played  about  it,  as  when  on  a  sullen  night  in 
August  summer  lightnings  flicker  and  merge. 

His  voice  had  found  another  cadence.  "But  Fate 
was  not  entirely  ruthless.  Fate  bade  the  child  become 
a  woman,  and  so  grow  tired  of  all  her  childhood's 
playthings.  This  was  after  a  long  while,  as  we  esti- 
mate happenings.  ...  I  suffered  then.  Yes,  I  went 
down  to  the  doors  of  death,  as  people  say,  in  my  long 
illness.  But  that  crude,  corporal  fever  had  a  provi- 
dential thievishness ;  and  not  content  with  stripping 
me  of  health  and  strength, — not  satisfied  with  pilfer- 
ing inventiveness  and  any  strong  hunger  to  create — 
why,  that  insatiable  fever  even  robbed  me  of  my 
insanity.  I  lived.  I  was  only  a  broken  instrument 
flung  by  because  the  god  had  wearied  of  playing.  I 
would  give  forth  no  more  heart-wringing  music,  for 
the  musician  had  departed.  And  I  still  lived — I,  the 
stout  little  tradesman  whom  you  loathed.  Yes,  that 
tradesman  scrambled  through  these  evils,  somehow, 
and  came  out  still  able  to  word  adequately  all  such 
imaginings  as  could  be  devised  by  his  natural  abilities. 
But  he  transmitted  no  more  heart-wringing  music." 

She  said,  "You  lie!" 

95 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


He  said,  "I  thank  Heaven  daily  that  I  do  not."  He 
spoke  the  truth.  She  knew  it,  and  her  heart  was  all 
rebellion. 

Indefatigable  birds  sang  through  the  following  hush. 
A  wholesome  and  temperate  breeze  caressed  these 
silent  people.  Bees  that  would  die  to-morrow  hummed 
about  them  tirelessly. 

Then  the  poet  said :  "I  loved  you ;  and  you  did  not 
love  me.  It  is  the  most  commonplace  of  tragedies, 
the  heart  of  every  man  alive  has  been  wounded  in  this 
identical  fashion.  A  master-poet  is  only  that  wounded 
man — among  so  many  other  bleeding  folk — who  per- 
versely augments  his  agony,  and  utilizes  his  wound  as 
an  inkwell.  Presently  time  scars  over  the  cut  for  him, 
as  time  does  for  all  the  others.  He  does  not  suffer 
any  longer.  No,  and  such  relief  is  a  clear  gain;  but 
none  the  less,  he  must  henceforward  write  with  ordi- 
nary ink  such  as  the  lawyers  use/' 

"I  should  have  been  the  man,"  the  woman  cried. 
"Had  I  been  sure  of  fame,  could  I  have  known  those 
raptures  when  you  used  to  gabble  immortal  phrases 
like  a  stammering  infant,  I  would  have  paid  the  price 
without  all  this  whimpering." 

"Faith,  and  I  think  you  would  have,"  he  assented. 
"There  is  the  difference.  At  bottom  I  am  a  creature 
of  the  most  moderate  aspirations,  as  you  always  com- 
plained ;  and  for  my  part,  Fate  must  in  reason  demand 
her  applause  of  posterity  rather  than  of  me.  For  I 
regret  the  unlived  life  that  I  was  meant  for — the 
comfortable  level  life  of  little  happenings  which  all 

96 


JUDITH'S    CREED 


my  schoolfellows  have  passed  through  in  a  stolid 
drove.  I  was  equipped  to  live  that  life  with  relish, 
and  that  life  only;  and  it  was  denied  me.  It  was 
demolished  in  order  that  a  book  or  two  be  made  out 
of  its  wreckage." 

She  said,  with  half-shut  eyes:  "There  is  a  woman 
at  the  root  of  all  this."  And  how  he  laughed! 

"Did  I  not  say  you  were  a  witch?  Why,  most 
assuredly  there  is." 

He  motioned  with  his  left  hand.  Some  hundred 
yards  away  a  young  man,  who  was  carrying  two  logs 
toward  New  Place,  had  paused  to  rest.  A  girl  was 
with  him.  Now  laughingly  she  was  pretending  to 
assist  the  porter  in  lifting  his  burden.  It  was  a 
quaintly  pretty  vignette,  as  framed  by  the  peach  leaves, 
because  those  two  young  people  were  so  merry  and  so 
candidly  in  love.  A  symbolist  might  have  wrung 
pathos  out  of  the  girl's  desire  to  aid,  as  set  against 
her  fond  inadequacy;  and  the  attendant  playwright 
made  note  of  it. 

"Well,  well!"  he  said:  "Young  Quiney  is  a  so-so 
choice,  since  women  must  necessarily  condescend  to 
intermarrying  with  men.  But  he  is  far  from  worthy 
of  her.  Tell  me,  now,  was  there  ever  a  rarer  piece  of 
beauty?" 

"The  wench  is  not  ill-favored,"  was  the  dark  lady's 
unenthusiastic  answer.  "So! — but  who  is  she?" 

He  replied:  "She  is  my  daughter.  Yonder  you 
see  my  latter  muse  for  whose  dear  sake  I  spin 
romances.  I  do  not  mean  that  she  takes  any  lively 

97 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


interest  in  them.  That  is  not  to  be  expected,  since 
she  cannot  read  or  write.  Ask  her  about  the  poet  we 
were  discussing,  and  I  very  much  fear  Judith  will 
bluntly  inform  you  she  cannot  tell  a  B  from  a  bull's 
foot.  But  one  must  have  a  muse  of  some  sort  or 
another ;  and  so  I  write  about  the  world  now  as  Judith 
sees  it.  My  Judith  finds  this  world  an  eminently 
pleasant  place.  It  is  full  of  laughter  and  kindliness — 
for  could  Herod  be  unkind  to  her? — and  it  is  largely 
populated  by  ardent  young  fellows  who  are  intended 
chiefly  to  be  twisted  about  your  fingers;  and  it  is 
illuminated  by  sunlight  whose  real  purpose  is  to  show 
how  pretty  your  hair  is.  And  if  affairs  go  badly  for 
a  while,  and  you  have  done  nothing  very  wrong — why, 
of  course,  Heaven  will  soon  straighten  matters  satis- 
factorily. For  nothing  that  happens  to  us  can  possibly 
be  anything  except  a  benefit,  because  God  orders  all 
happenings,  and  God  loves  us.  There  you  have 
Judith's  creed ;  and  upon  my  word,  I  believe  there  is  a 
great  deal  to  be  said  for  it." 

"And  this  is  you/'  she  cried — "you  who  wrote  of 
Troilus  and  Timon!" 

"I  lived  all  that,"  he  replied— "I  lived  it,  and  so 
for  a  long  while  I  believed  in  the  existence  of  wicked- 
ness. To-day  I  have  lost  many  illusions,  madam,  and 
that  ranks  among  them,  I  never  knew  a  wicked  per- 
son. I  question  if  anybody  ever  did.  Undoubtedly 
short-sighted  people  exist  who  have  floundered  into 
ill-doing ;  but  it  proves  always  to  have  been  on  account 
of  either  cowardice  or  folly,  and  never  because  of 

98 


JUDITH'S    CREED 


malevolence ;  and,  in  consequence,  their  sorry  pickle 
should  demand  commiseration  far  more  loudly  than 
our  blame.  In  short,  I  find  humanity  to  be  both  a 
weaker  and  a  better-meaning  race  than  I  had  suspected. 
And  so,  I  make  what  you  call  'sugar-candy  dolls,'  be- 
cause I  very  potently  believe  that  all  of  us  are  sweet 
at  heart.  Oh  no!  men  lack  an  innate  aptitude  for 
sinning;, and  at  worst,  we  frenziedly  attempt  our  mis- 
demeanors just  as  a  sheep  retaliates  on  its  pursuers. 
This  much,  at  least,  has  Judith  taught  me." 

The  woman  murmured :  "Eh,  you  are  luckier  than 
I.  I  had  a  son.  He  was  borne  of  my  anguish,  he  was 
fed  and  tended  by  me,  and  he  was  dependent  on  me 
in  all  things."  She  said,  with  a  half-sob,  "My  poet, 
he  was  so  little  and  so  helpless !  Now  he  is  dead." 

"My  dear,  my  dear !"  he  cried,  and  he  took  both  her 
hands.  "I  also  had  a  son.  He  would  have  been  a  man 
by  this." 

They  stood  thus  for  a  while.    And  then  he  smiled. 

"I  ask  your  pardon.  I  had  forgotten  that  you  hate 
to  touch  my  hands.  I  know — they  are  too  moist  and 
flabby.  I  always  knew  that  you  thought  that.  Well ! 
Hamnet  died.  I  grieved.  That  is  a  trivial  thing  to 
say.  But  you  also  have  seen  your  own  flesh  lying  in  a 
coffin  so  small  that  even  my  soft  hands  could  lift  it. 
So  you  will  comprehend.  To-day  I  find  that  the 
roughest  winds  abate  with  time.  Hatred  and  self- 
seeking  and  mischance  and,  above  all,  the  frailties 
innate  in  us — these  buffet  us  for  a  while,  and  we  are 
puzzled,  and  we  demand  of  God,  as  Job  did,  why  is  this 

99 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


permitted?  And  then  as  the  hair  dwindles,  the  wit 
grows." 

"Oh,  yes,  with  age  we  take  a  slackening  hold  upon 
events;  we  let  all  happenings  go  by  more  lightly; 
and  we  even  concede  the  universe  not  to  be  under  any 
actual  bond  to  be  intelligible.  Yes,  that  is  true.  But 
is  it  gain,  my  poet?  for  I  had  thought  it  to  be  loss." 

"With  age  we  gain  the  priceless  certainty  that  sor- 
row and  injustice  are  ephemeral.  Solvitur  ambulando, 
my  dear.  I  have  attested  this  merely  by  living  long 
enough.  I,  like  any  other  man  of  my  years,  have  in 
my  day  known  more  or  less  every  grief  which  the 
world  breeds;  and  each  maddened  me  in  turn,  as  each 
was  duly  salved  by  time;  so  that  to-day  their  rav- 
ages vex  me  no  more  than  do  the  bee-stings  I  got  when 
I  was  an  urchin.  To-day  I  grant  the  world  to  be 
composed  of  muck  and  sunshine  intermingled;  but, 
upon  the  whole,  I  find  the  sunshine  more  pleasant  to 
look  at,  and — greedily,  because  my  time  for  sight- 
seeing is  not  very  long — I  stare  at  it.  And  I  hold 
Judith's  creed  to  be  the  best  of  all  imaginable  creeds — 
that  if  we  do  nothing  very  wrong,  ail  human  im- 
broglios, in  some  irrational  and  quite  incomprehensible 
fashion,  will  be  straightened  to  our  satisfaction. 
Meanwhile,  you  also  voice  a  tonic  truth — this  universe 
of  ours,  and,  reverently  speaking,  the  Maker  of  this 
universe  as  well,  is  under  no  actual  bond  to  be  intel- 
ligible in  dealing  with  us ."  He  laughed  at  this  season 
and  fell  into  a  lighter  tone.  "Do  I  preach  like  a  little 
conventicle-attending  tradesman  ?  Faith,  you  must  re- 
100 


JUDITH'S    CREED 


member  that  when  I  talk  gravely  Judith  listens  as  if  it 
were  an  oracle  discoursing.  For  Judith  loves  me  as 
the  wisest  and  the  best  of  men.  I  protest  her  adora- 
tion frightens  me.  What  if  she  were  to  find  me  out?" 

"I  loved  what  was  divine  in  you,"  the  woman 
answered. 

"Oddly  enough,  that  is  the  perfect  truth!  And 
when  what  was  divine  in  me  had  burned  a  sufficiency 
of  incense  to  your  vanity,  your  vanity's  owner  drove 
off  in  a  fine  coach  and  left  me  to  die  in  a  garret.  Then 
Judith  came.  Then  Judith  nursed  and  tended  and 
caressed  me — and  Judith  only  in  all  the  world! — as 
once  you  did  that  boy  you  spoke  of.  Ah,  madam, 
and  does  not  sorrow  sometimes  lie  awake  o'  nights 
in  the  low  cradle  of  that  child?  and  sometimes  walk 
with  you  by  day  and  clasp  your  hand — much  as  his 
tiny  hand  did  once,  so  trustingly,  so  like  the  clutching 
of  a  vine — and  beg  you  never  to  be  friends  with  any- 
thing save  sorrow?  And  do  you  whole-heartedly  love 
those  other  women's  boys — who  did  not  die?  Yes,  I 
remember.  Judith,  too,  remembered.  I  was  her 
father,  for  all  that  I  had  forsaken  my  family  to  dance 
Jack-pudding  attendance  on  a  fine  Court  lady.  So 
Judith  came.  And  Judith,  who  sees  in  play-writing 
just  a  very  uncertain  way  of  making  money — Judith, 
who  cannot  tell  a  B  from  a  bull's  foot, — why,  Judith, 
madam,  did  not  ask,  but  gave,  what  was  divine." 

"You  are  unfair,"  she  cried.  "Oh,  you  are  cruel, 
you  juggle  words,  make  knives  of  them.  .  .  .  You" — 
and  she  spoke  as  with  difficulty — "you  have  no  right  to 

101 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


know  just  how  I  loved  my  boy !    You  should  be  either 
man  or  woman!" 

He  said  pensively :  "Yes,  I  am  cruel.  But  you  had 
mirth  and  beauty  once,  and  I  had  only  love  and  a 
vocabulary.  Who  then  more  flagrantly  abused  the 
gifts  God  gave?  And  why  should  I  not  be  cruel  to 
you,  who  made  a  master-poet  of  me  for  your  recrea- 
tion? Lord,  what  a  deal  of  ruined  life  it  takes  to 
make  a  little  art !  Yes,  yes,  I  know.  Under  old  oaks 
lovers  will  mouth  my  verses,  and  the  acorns  are  not 
yet  shaped  from  which  those  oaks  will  spring.  My 
adoration  and  your  perfidy,  all  that  I  have  suffered,  all 
that  I  have  failed  in  even,  has  gone  toward  the  build 
ing  of  an  enduring  monument.  All  these  will  be  im- 
mortal, because  youth  is  immortal,  and  youth  delights 
in  demanding  explanations  of  infinity.  And  only  to 
this  end  I  have  suffered  and  have  catalogued  the  rav- 
ings of  a  perverse  disease  which  has  robbed  my  life  of 
all  the  normal  privileges  of  life  as  flame  shrivels  hair 
from  the  arm — that  young  fools  such  as  I  was  once 
might  be  pleased  to  murder  my  rhetoric,  and  scribblers 
parody  me  in  their  fictions,  and  schoolboys  guess  at 
the  date  of  my  death!"  This  he  said  with  more  than 
ordinary  animation;  and  then  he  shook  his  head. 
"There  is  a  leaven,"  he  said — "there  is  a  leaven  even 
in  your  smuggest  and  most  inconsiderable  tradesman." 

She  answered,  with  a  wistful  smile :    "I,  too,  regret 
my  poet.    And  just  now  you  are  more  like  him " 

"Faith,  but  he  was  really  a  poet — or,  at  least,  at 
times ?" 

IO2 


j  UDITH'S    CREED 


"  'Not  marble,  nor  the  gilded  monuments  of  princes 
shall  outlive  this  powerful  rhyme '  " 

"Dear,  dear!". he  said,  in  petulant  vexation;  "how 
horribly  emotion  botches  verse.  That  clash  of  sibi- 
lants is  both  harsh  and  ungrammatical.  Shall  should 
be  changed  to  will."  And  at  that  the  woman  sighed, 
because,  in  common  with  all  persons  who  never 
essayed  creative  verbal  composition,  she  was  quite 
certain  perdurable  writing  must  spring  from  a  sur- 
charged heart,  rather  than  from  a  rearrangement  of 
phrases.  And  so, 

"Very  unfeignedly  I  regret  my  poet,"  she  said,  — 
"my  poet,  who  was  unhappy  and  unreasonable,  be- 
cause I  was  not  always  wise  or  kind,  or  even  just. 
And  I  did  not  know  until  to-day  how  much  I  loved 
my  poet.  .  .  .  Yes,  I  know  now  I  loved  him.  I  must 
go  now.  I  would  I  had  not  come." 

Then,  standing  face  to  face,  he  cried,  "Eh,  madam, 
and  what  if  I  also  have  lied  to  you — in  part?  Our 
work  is  done;  what  more  is  there  to  say?" 

"Nothing,"  she  answered — "nothing.  Not  even  for 
you,  who  are  a  master-smith  of  words  to-day  and  noth- 
ing more." 

"I?"  he  replied.  "Do  you  so  little  emulate  a  higher 
example  that  even  for  a  moment  you  consider  me  ?" 

She  did  not  answer. 

When  she  had  gone,  the  playmaker  sat  for  a  long 
while  in  meditation ;  and  then  smilingly  he  took  up  his 

103 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


pen.     He  was  bound   for   "an   uninhabited   island" 
where  all  disasters  ended  in  a  happy  climax. 

"So,  so!"  he  was  declaiming,  later  on:  "We,  too, 
are  kin  To  dreams  and  visions;  and  our  little  life  Is 
gilded  by  such  faint  and  cloud-wrapped  suns — Only, 
that  needs  a  homelier  touch.  Rather,  let  us  say,  We 
are  such  stuff  As  dreams  are  made  on— Oh,  good, 
good! — Now  to  pad  out  the  line.  ...  In  any  event, 
the  Bermudas  are  a  seasonable  topic.  Now  here,  in- 
stead of  thickly-templed  India,  suppose  we  write  the 
still-vexed  Bermoothes — Good,  good!  It  fits  in  well 
enough.  .  .  ." 

And  so  in  clerkly  fashion  he  sat  about  the  accom- 
plishment of  his  stint  of  labor  in  time  for  dinner.  A 
competent  workman  is  not  disastrously  upset  by  inter- 
ruption; and,  indeed,  he  found  the  notion  of  sur- 
prising Judith  with  an  unlooked-for  trinket  or  so  to  be 
at  first  a  very  efficacious  spur  to  composition. 

And  presently  the  strong  joy  of  creating  kindled  in 
him,  and  phrase  flowed  abreast  with  thought,  and  the 
playmaker  wrote  fluently  and  surely  to  an  accompani- 
ment of  contented  ejaculations.  He  regretted  nothing, 
he  would  not  now  have  laid  aside  his  pen  to  take  up  a 
scepter.  For  surely — he  would  have  said — to  live 
untroubled,  and  weave  beautiful  and  winsome  dreams 
is  the  most  desirable  of  human  fates.  But  he  did  not 
consciously  think  of  this,  because  he  was  midcourse 
in  the  evoking  of  a  mimic  tempest  which,  having 
purged  its  victims  of  unkindliness  and  error,  aimed 
(in  the  end)  only  to  sink  into  an  amiable  calm. 
104 


CONCERNING   CORINNA 


"DR.  HERRICK  told  me  that,  in  common  with  all  the 
Enlightened  or  Illuminated  Brothers,  of  which  prying  sect 
the  age  breeds  so  many,  he  trusted  the  great  line's  of 
Nature,  not  in  the  whole,  but  in  part,  as  they  believed 
Nature  was  in  certain  senses  not  true,  and  a  betrayer, 
and  that  she  was  not  wholly  the  benevolent  power  to 
endow,  as  accorded  with  the  prevailing  deceived  notion 
of  the  vulgar.  But  he  wished  not  to  discuss  more  par- 
ticularly than  thus,  as  he  had  drawn  up  to  himself  a 
certain  frontier  of  reticence;  and  so  fell  to  petting  a 
great  black  pig,  of  which  he  made  an  unseemly  companion, 
and  to  talking  idly." 


A  Gyges  ring  they  bear  about  them  still, 

To  be,  and  not,  seen  when  and  where  they  will ; 

They  tread  on  clouds,  and  though  they  sometimes  fall, 
They  fall  like  dew,  and  make  no  noise  at  all : 

So  silently  they  one  to  th*  other  come 
As  colors  steal  into  the  pear  or  plum ; 

And  air-like,  leave  no  pression  to  be  seen 
Where'er  they  met,  or  parting  place  has  been. 

ROBERT  HERRICK.    My  Lovers  how 
They  Come  and  Part. 


CONCERNING   CORINNA 


THE  matter  hinges  entirely  upon  whether  or  not 
Robert    Herrick   was   insane.      Sir   Thomas 
Browne  always  preferred  to  think  that  he  was ; 
whereas  Philip  Borsdale  perversely  considered  the  an- 
swer to  be  optional.    Perversely,  Sir  Thomas  protested, 
because  he  said  that  to  believe  in  Her  rick's  sanity  was 
not  conducive  to  your  own. 

This  much  is  certain :  the  old  clergyman,  a  man  of 
few  friends  and  no  intimates,  enjoyed  in  Devon,  thanks 
to  his  time-hallowed  reputation  for  singularity,  a  cer- 
tain immunity.  In  and  about  Dean  Prior,  for  instance, 
it  was  conceded  in  1674  that  it  was  unusual  for  a 
divine  of  the  Church  of  England  to  make  a  black  pig — 
and  a  pig  of  peculiarly  diabolical  ugliness,  at  that — his 
ordinary  associate ;  but  Dean  Prior  had  come  long  ago 
to  accept  the  grisly  brute  as  a  concomitant  of  Dr. 
Herrick's  presence  almost  as  inevitable  as  his  shadow. 
It  was  no  crime  to  be  fond  of  dumb  animals,  not  even 
of  one  so  inordinately  unprepossessing;  and  you  al- 
lowed for  eccentricities,  in  any  event,  in  dealing  with 
a  poet. 

107 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


For  Totnes,  Buckfastleigh,  Dean  Prior — all  that 
part  of  Devon,  in  fact — complacently  basked  in  the 
reflected  glory  of  Robert  Herrick.  People  came  from 
a  long  distance,  now  that  the  Parliamentary  Wars  were 
over,  in  order  just  to  see  the  writer  of  the  Hesperides 
and  the  Noble  Numbers.  And  such  enthusiasts  found, 
in  Robert  Herrick  a  hideous  dreamy  man,  who,  with- 
out ever  perpetrating  any  actual  discourtesy,  always 
managed  to  dismiss  them,  somehow,  with  a  sense  of 
having  been  rebuffed. 

Sir  Thomas  Browne,  that  ardent  amateur  of  the 
curious,  came  into  Devon,  however,  without  the  risk 
of  incurring  any  such  fate,  inasmuch  as  the  knight 
traveled  westward  simply  to  discuss  with  Master  Philip 
Borsdale  the  recent  doings  of  Cardinal  Alioneri. 
Now,  Philip  Borsdale,  as  Sir  Thomas  knew,  had  been 
employed  by  Herrick  in  various  transactions  here 
irrelevant.  In  consequence,  Sir  Thomas  Browne  was 
not  greatly  surprised  when,  on  his  arrival  at  Buck- 
fastleigh, Borsdale's  body-servant  told  him  that  Master 
Borsdale  had  left  instructions  for  Sir  Thomas  to 
follow  him  to  Dean  Prior.  Browne  complied,  because 
his  business  with  Borsdale  was  of  importance. 

Philip  Borsdale  was  lounging  in  Dr.  Herrick's  chair, 
intent  upon  a  lengthy  manuscript,  alone  and  to  all 
appearances  quite  at  home.  The  state  of  the  room 
Sir  Thomas  found  extraordinary;  but  he  had  graver 
matters  to  discuss;  and  he  explained  the  results  of 
his  mission  without  extraneous  comment. 

"Yes,  you  have  managed  it  to  admiration,"  said 
108 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


Philip  Borsdale,  when  the  knight  had  made  an  end. 
Borsdale  leaned  back  and  laughed,  purringly,  for  the 
outcome  of  this  affair  of  the  Cardinal  and  the  Wax 
Image  meant  much  to  him  from  a  pecuniary  stand- 
point. "Yet  it  is  odd  a  prince  of  any  church  which 
has  done  so  much  toward  the  discomfiture  of  sorcery 
should  have  entertained  such  ideas.  It  is  also  odd  to 
note  the  series  of  coincidences  which  appears  to  have 
attended  this  Alioneri's  practises." 

"I  noticed  that,"  said  Sir  Thomas.  After  a  while 
he  said :  "You  think,  then,  that  they  must  have  been 
coincidences  ?" 

"Must  is  a  word  which  intelligent  people  do  not 
outwear  by  too  constant  usage/' 

And  "Oh ?"  said  the  knight,  and  said  that  alone, 

because  he  was  familiar  with  the  sparkle  now  in 
Borsdale' s  eyes,  and  knew  it  heralded  an  adventure 
for  an  amateur  of  the  curious. 

"I  am  not  committing  myself,  mark  you,  Sir 
Thomas,  to  any  statement  whatever,  beyond  the  ob- 
servation that  these  coincidences  were  noticeable.  I 
add,  with  superficial  irrelevance,  that  Dr.  Herrick  dis- 
appeared last  night." 

"I  am  not  surprised,"  said  Sir  Thomas,  drily.  "No 
possible  antics  would  astonish  me  on  the  part  of  that 
unvenerable  madman.  When  I  was  last  in  Totnes,  he 
broke  down  in  the  midst  of  a  sermon,  and  flung  the 
manuscript  of  it  at  his  congregation,  and  cursed  them 
roundly  for  not  paying  closer  attention.  Such  was 
never  my  ideal  of  absolute  decorum  in  the  pulpit. 

109 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Moreover,  it  is  unusual  for  a  minister  of  the  Church 
of  England  to  be  accompanied  everywhere  by  a  pig 
with  whom  he  discusses  the  affairs  of  the  parish  pre- 
cisely as  if  the  pig  were  a  human  being." 

"The  pig — he  whimsically  called  the  pig  Corinna, 
sir,  in  honor  of  that  imaginary  mistress  to  whom  he 
addressed  so  many  verses — why,  the  pig  also  has  dis- 
appeared. Oh,  but  of  course  that  at  least  is  simply  a 
coincidence.  ...  I  grant  you  it  was  an  uncanny 
beast.  And  I  grant  you  that  Dr.  Herrick  was  a  dubi- 
ous ornament  to  his  calling.  Of  that  I  am  doubly  cer- 
tain to-day,"  said  Borsdale,  and  he  waved  his  hand 
comprehensively,  "in  view  of  the  state  in  which — 
you  see — he  left  this  room.  Yes,  he  was  quietly  writ- 
ing here  at  eleven  o'clock  last  night  when  old  Prudence 
Baldwin,  his  housekeeper,  last  saw  him.  Afterward 
Dr.  Herrick  appears  to  have  diverted  himself  by  taking 
away  the  mats  and  chalking  geometrical  designs  upon 
the  floor,  as  well  as  by  burning  some  sort  of  incense 
in  this  brasier." 

"But  such  avocations,  Philip,  are  not  necessarily 
indicative  of  sanity.  No,  it  is  not,  upon  the  whole,  an 
inevitable  manner  for  an  elderly  parson  to  while  away 
an  evening." 

"Oh,  but  that  was  only  a  part,  sir.  He  also  left 
the  clothes  he  was  wearing — in  a  rather  peculiarly 
constructed  heap,  as  you  can  see.  Among  them,  by  the 
way,  I  found  this  flattened  and  corroded  bullet.  That 
puzzled  me.  I  think  I  understand  it  now."  Thus 
1 10 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


Borsdale,  as  he  composedly  smoked  his  churchwarden. 
"In  short,  the  whole  affair  is  as  mysterious " 

Here  Sir  Thomas  raised  his  hand.  "Spare  me  the 
simile.  I  detect  a  vista  of  curious  perils  such  as  in- 
finitely outshines  verbal  brilliancy.  You  need  my  aid 
in  some  insane  attempt."  He  considered.  He  said: 
"So!  you  have  been  retained?" 

"I  have  been  asked  to  help  him.  Of  course  I  did 
not  know  of  what  he  meant  to  try.  In  short,  Dr. 
Her  rick  left  this  manuscript,  as  well  as  certain  instruc- 
tions for  me.  The  last  are — well!  unusual." 

"Ah,  yes!  You  hearten  me.  I  have  long  had  my 
suspicions  as  to  this  Herrick,  though.  .  .  .  And  what 
are  we  to  do?" 

"I  really  cannot  inform  you,  sir.  I  doubt  if  I  could 
explain  in  any  workaday  English  even  what  we  will 
attempt  to  do,"  said  Philip  Borsdale.  "I  do  say  this  : 
You  believe  the  business  which  we  have  settled,  involv- 
ing as  it  does  the  lives  of  thousands  of  men  and 
women,  to  be  of  importance,  I  swear  to  you  that,  as 
set  against  what  we  will  essay,  all  we  have  done  is 
trivial.  As  pitted  against  the  business  we  will  attempt 
to-night,  our  previous  achievements  are  suggestive  of 
the  evolutions  of  two  sand-fleas  beside  the  ocean. 
The  prize  at  which  this  adventure  aims  is  so  stupen- 
dous that  I  cannot  name  it." 

"Oh,  but  you  must,  Philip.  I  am  no  more  afraid  of 
the  local  constabulary  than  I  am  of  the  local  notions 
as  to  what  respectability  entails.  I  may  confess,  how- 

iii 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


ever,  that  I  am  afraid  of  wagering  against  unknown 
odds." 

Borsdale  reriecteci.  Then  he  said,  with  deliberation : 
"Dr.  Herrick's  was,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  an 
unusual  life.  He  is — or  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  he  was 
— upwaid.  of  eighty-three.  He  has  lived  here  for  over 
a  half-century,  and  during  that  time  he  has  never  at- 
tempted to  make  either  a  friend  or  an  enemy.  He  was 
— indifferent,  let  us  say.  Talking  to  Dr.  Herrick  was, 
somehow,  like  talking  to  a  man  in  a  fog.  .  .  .  Mean- 
while, he  wrote  his  verses  to  imaginary  women — to 
Corinna  and  Julia,  to  Myrha,  Electra  and  Perilla — 
those  lovely,  shadow  women  who  never,  in  so  far  as  we 
know,  had  any  real  existence " 

Sir  Thomas  smiled.  "Of  course.  They  are  mere 
figments  of  the  poet,  pegs  to  hang  rhymes  on.  And 
yet — let  us  go  on.  I  know  that  Herrick  never  will- 
ingly so  much  as  spoke  with  a  woman." 

"Not  in  so  far  as  we  know,  I  said."  And  Borsdale 
paused.  "Then,  too,  he  wrote  such  dainty,  merry 
poems  about  the  fairies.  Yes,  it  was  all  of  fifty  years 
ago  that  Dr.  Herrick  first  appeared  in  print  with  his 
Description  of  the  King  and  Queen  of  the  Fairies. 
The  thought  seems  always  to  have  haunted  him." 

The  knight's  face  changed,  a  little  by  a  little.  "I 
have  long  been  an  amateur  of  the  curious,"  he  said, 
strangely  quiet.  "I  do  not  think  that  anything  you 
may  say  will  surprise  me  inordinately." 

"He  had  found  in  every  country  in  the  world  tra- 
ditions of  a  race  who  were  human — yet  more  than  hu- 
112 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


man.  That  is  the  most  exact  fashion  in  which  I  can 
express  his  beginnings.  On  every  side  he  found  the 
notion  of  a  race  who  can  impinge  on  mortal  life  and 
partake  of  it — but  always  without  exercising  the  last 
reach  of  their  endowments.  Oh,  the  tradition  exists 
everywhere,  whether  you  call  these  occasional  inter- 
lopers fauns,  fairies,  gnomes,  ondines,  incubi,  or 
demons.  They  could,  according  to  these  fables,  tem- 
porarily restrict  themselves  into  our  life,  just  as  a 
swimmer  may  elect  to  use  only  one  arm — or,  a  more 
fitting  comparison,  become  apparent  to  our  human 
senses  in  the  fashion  of  a  cube  which  can  obtrude  only 
one  of  its  six  surfaces  into  a  plane.  You  follow  me, 
of  c6urse,  sir? — to  the  triangles  and  circles  and  hexa- 
gons this  cube  would  seem  to  be  an  ordinary  square. 
Conceiving  such  a  race  to  exist,  we  might  talk  with 
them,  might  jostle  them  in  the  streets,  might  even 
intermarry  with  them,  sir — and  always  see  in  them 
only  human  beings,  and  solely  because  of  our  senses' 
limitations." 

"I  comprehend.  These  are  exactly  the  speculations 
that  would  appeal  to  an  unbalanced  mind — is  that  not 
your  thought,  Philip  ?" 

"Why,  there  is  nothing  particularly  insane,  Sir 
Thomas,  in  desiring  to  explore  in  fields  beyond  those 
which  our  senses  make  perceptible.  It  is  very  certain 
these  fields  exist;  and  the  question  of  their  extent  I 
take  to  be  both  interesting  and  important." 

Then  Sir  Thomas  said:  "Like  any  other  rational 
man,  I  have  occasionally  thought  of  this  endeavor  at 

"3 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


which  you  hint.  We  exist — you  and  I  and  all  the 
others — in  what  we  glibly  call  the  universe.  All  that 
we  know  of  it  is  through  what  we  entitle  our  five 
senses,  which,  when  provoked  to  action,  will  cause 
a  chemical  change  in  a  few  ounces  of  spongy  matter 
packed  in  our  skulls.  There  are  no  grounds  for  believ- 
ing that  this  particular  method  of  communication  is 
adequate,  or  even  that  the  agents  which  produce  it 
are  veracious.  Meanwhile,  we  are  in  touch  with  what 
exists  through  our  five  senses  only.  It  may  be  that 
they  lie  to  us.  There  is,  at  least,  no  reason  for  as- 
suming them  to  be  infallible/* 

"But  reflection  plows  a  deeper  furrow,  Sir  Thomas. 
Even  in  the  exercise  of  any  one  of  these  five  senses 
it  is  certain  that  we  are  excelled  by  what  we  vainglo- 
riously  call  the  lower  forms  of  life.  A  dog  has  pow- 
ers of  scent  we  cannot  reach  to,  birds  hear  the  crawl- 
ing of  a  worm,  insects  distinguish  those  rays  in  the 
spectrum  which  lie  beyond  violet  and  red,  and  are  in- 
visible to  us;  and  snails  and  fish  and  ants — perhaps 
all  other  living  creatures,  indeed — have  senses  which 
man  does  not  share  at  all,  and  has  no  name  for. 
Granted  that  we  human  beings  alone  possess  the 
power  of  reasoning,  the  fact  remains  that  we  invaria- 
bly start  with  false  premises,  and  always  pass  our 
judgments  when  biased  at  the  best  by  incomplete  re- 
ports of  everything  in  the  universe,  and  very  possibly 
by  reports  which  lie  flat-footedly." 

You  saw  that  Browne  was  troubled.  Now  he  rose. 
"Nothing  will  come  of  this.  I  do  not  touch  upon  the 
114 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


desirability  of  conquering  those  fields  at  which  we 
dare  only  to  hint.  No,  I  am  not  afraid.  I  dare  as- 
sist you  in  doing  anything  Dr.  Herrick  asks,  because 
I  know  that  nothing  will  come  of  such  endeavors. 
Much  is  permitted  us — 'but  of  the  fruit  of  the  tree 
which  is  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  God  hath  said, 
to  us  who  are  no  more  than  human,  Ye  shall  not 
eat  of  it.' " 

"Yet  Dr.  Herrick,  as  many  other  men  have  done, 
thought  otherwise.  I,  too,  will  venture  a  quotation. 
'Didst  thou  never  see  a  lark  in  a  cage?  Such  is  the 
soul  in  the  body:  this  world  is  like  her  little  turf  of 
grass,  and  the  heavens  o'er  our  heads,  like  her  looking- 
glass,  only  gives  us  a  miserable  knowledge  of  the  small 
compass  of  our  prison.'  Many  years  ago  that  lamen- 
tation was  familiar.  What  wonder,  then,  that  Dr. 
Herrick  should  have  dared  to  repeat  it  yesterday? 
And  what  wonder  if  he  tried  to  free  the  prisoner?" 

"Such  freedom  is  forbidden,"  Sir  Thomas  stub- 
bornly replied.  "I  have  long  known  that  Herrick  was 
formerly  in  correspondence  with  John  Heydon,  and 
Robert  Flood,  and  others  of  the  Illuminated,  as  they 
call  themselves.  There  are  many  of  this  sect  in  Eng- 
land, as  we  all  know;  and  we  hear  much  silly  chat- 
ter of  Elixirs  and  Philosopher's  Stones  in  connection 
with  them.  But  I  happen  to  know  somewhat  of  their 
real  aims  and  tenets.  I  do  not  care  to  know  any  more 
than  I  do.  If  it  be  true  that  all  of  which  man  is  con- 
scious is  just  a  portion  of  a  curtain,  and  that  the 
actual  universe  in  nothing  resembles  our  notion  of  it, 

115 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


I  am  willing  to  believe  this  curtain  was  placed  there 
for  some  righteous  and  wibe  reason.  They  tell  me  the 
curtain  may  be  lifted.  Whether  this  be  true  or  no, 
I  must  for  my  own  sanity's  sake  insist  it  can  never  be 
lifted." 

"But  what  if  it  were  not  forbidden?  For  Dr.  Her- 
rick  asserts  he  has  already  demonstrated  that." 

Sir  Thomas  interrupted,  with  odd  quickness.  "True, 
we  must  bear  it  in  mind  the  man  never  married — Did 
he,  by  any  chance,  possess  a  crystal  of  Venice  glass 
three  inches  square?" 

And  Borsdale  gaped.  "I  found  it  with  his  manu- 
script. But  he  said  nothing  of  it.  ...  How  could 
you  guess?" 

Sir  Thomas  reflectively  scraped  the  edge  of  the 
glass  with  his  finger-nail.  "You  would  be  none  the 
happier  for  knowing,  Philip.  Yes,  that  is  a  blood-stain 
here.  I  see.  And  Herrick,  so  far  as  we  know,  had 
never  in  his  life  loved  any  woman.  He  is  the  only 
poet  in  history  who  never  demonstrably  loved  any 
woman.  I  think  you  had  better  read  me  his  manu- 
script, Philip." 

This  Philip  Borsdale  did. 

Then  Sir  Thomas  said,  as  quiet  epilogue:  "This, 
if  it  be  true,  would  explain  much  as  to  that  lovely  land 
of  eternal  spring  and  daffodils  and  friendly  girls,  of 
which  his  verses  make  us  free.  It  would  even  explain 
Corinna  and  Herrick's  rapt  living  without  any  hu- 
man ties.  For  all  poets  since  the  time  of  ^Eschylus, 
116 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


who  could  not  write  until  he  was  too  drunken  to  walk, 
have  been  most  readily  seduced  by  whatever  stimulus 
most  tended  to  heighten  their  imaginings;  so  that  for 
the  sake  of  a  song's  perfection  they  have  freely  re- 
sorted to  divers  artificial  inspirations,  and  very  often 
without  evincing  any  undue  squeamishness.  ...  I 
spoke  of  ^schylus.  I  am  sorry,  Philip,  that  you  are 
not  familiar  with  ancient  Greek  life.  There  is  so 
much  I  could  tell  you  of,  in  that  event,  of  the  quaint 
cult  of  Kore,  or  Pherephatta,  and  of  the  swine  of 
Eubouleus,  and  of  certain  ambiguous  maidens,  whom 
those  old  Grecians  fabled — oh,  very  ignorantly  fa- 
bled, my  lad,  of  course — to  rule  in  a  more  quietly  lit 
and  more  tranquil  world  than  we  blunder  about.  I 
think  I  could  explain  much  which  now  seems  mys- 
terious— yes,  and  the  daffodils,  also,  that  Herrick 
wrote  of  so  constantly.  But  it  is  better  not  to  talk 
of  these  sinister  delusions  of  heathenry."  Sir  Thomas 
shrugged.  "For  my  reward  would  be  to  have  you 
think  me  mad.  I  prefer  to  iterate  the  verdict  of  all 
logical  people,  and  formally  to  register  my  opinion 
that  Robert  Herrick  was  indisputably  a  lunatic." 

Borsdale  did  not  seem  perturbed.  "I  think  the  rec- 
ord of  his  experiments  is  true,  in  any  event.  You  will 
concede  that  their  results  were  startling?  And  what 
if  his  deductions  be  the  truth?  what  if  our  limited 
senses  have  reported  to  us  so  very  little  of  the  uni- 
verse, and  even  that  little  untruthfully?"  He  laughed 
and  drummed  impatiently  upon  the  table.  "At  least, 
he  tells  us  that  the  boy  returned.  I  fervently  believe 

117 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


that  in  this  matter  Dr.  Herrick  was  capable  of  any 
crime  except  falsehood.  Oh,  no !  depend  on  it,  he  also 
will  return." 

"You  imagine  Herrick  will  break  down  the  door 
between  this  world  and  that  other  inconceivable  world 
which  all  of  us  have  dreamed  of !  To  me,'  my  lad,  it 
seems  as  if  this  Herrick  aimed  dangerously  near  to 
repetition  of  the  Primal  Sin,  for  all  that  he  handles  it 
like  a  problem  in  mechanical  mathematics.  The  poet 
writes  as  if  he  were  instructing  a  dame's  school  as 
to  the  advisability  of  becoming  omnipotent." 

"Well,  well!  I  am  not  defending  Dr.  Herrick  in 
anything  save  his  desire  to  know  the  truth.  In  this 
respect  at  least,  he  has  proven  himself  to  be  both 
admirable  and  fearless.  And  at  worst,  he  only  strives 
to  do  what  Jacob  did  at  Peniel,"  said  Philip  Borsdale, 
lightly.  "The  patriarch,  as  I  recall,  was  blessed  for 
acting  as  he  did.  The  legend  is  not  irrelevant,  I  think." 

They  passed  into  the  adjoining  room. 

Thus  the  two  men  came  into  a  high-ceiled  apart- 
ment, cylindrical  in  shape,  with  plastered  walls  painted 
green  everywhere  save  for  the  quaint  embellishment 
of  a  large  oval,  wherein  a  woman,  having  an  eagle's 
beak,  grasped  in  one  hand  a  serpent  and  in  the  other 
a  knife.  Sir  Thomas  Browne  seemed  to  recognize  this 
curious  design,  and  gave  an  ominous  nod. 

Borsdale  said:  "You  see  Dr.  Herrick  had  pre- 
pared everything.  And  much  of  what  we  are  about 
to  do  is  merely  symbolical,  of  course.  Most  people 
118 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


undervalue  symbols.  They  do  not  seem  to  understand 
that  there  could  never  have  been  any  conceivable  need 
of  inventing  a  periphrasis  for  what  did  not  exist." 

Sir  Thomas  Browne  regarded  Borsdale  for  a  while 
intently.  Then  the  knight  gave  his  habitual  shrug- 
ging gesture.  "You  are  braver  than  I,  Philip,  because 
you  are  more  ignorant  than  I.  I  have  been  too  long 
an  amateur  of  the  curious.  Sometimes  in  over-credu- 
lous moments  I  have  almost  believed  that  in  sober 
verity  there  are  reasoning  beings  who  are  not  human — 
beings  that  for  their  own  dark  purposes  seek  union 
with  us.  Indeed,  I  went  into  Pomerania  once  to  talk 
with  John  Dietrick  of  Ramdin.  He  told  me  one  of 
those  relations  whose  truth  we  dread,  a  tale  which  I 
did  not  dare,  I  tell  you  candidly,  even  to  discuss  in 
my  Vulgar  Errors.  Then  there  is  Helgi  Thorison's 
history,  and  that  of  Leonard  of  Basle  also.  Oh,  there 
are  more  recorded  stories  of  this  nature  than  you 
dream  of,  Philip.  We  have  only  the  choice  between 
believing  that  all  these  men  were  madmen,  and  believ- 
ing that  ordinary  human  life  is  led  by  a  drugged 
animal  who  drowses  through  a  purblind  existence 
among  merciful  veils.  And  these  female  creatures — 
these  Corinnas,  Perillas,  Myrhas,  and  Electras — can  it 
be  possible  that  they  are  always  striving,  for  their 
own  strange  ends,  to  rouse  the  sleeping  animal  and 
break  the  kindly  veils  ? — and  are  they  permitted  to  use 
such  amiable  enticements  as  Herrick  describes?  Oh, 
no,  all  this  is  just  a  madman's  dream,  dear  lad,  and 

119 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


we  must  not  dare  to  consider  it  seriously,  lest  we  be- 
come no  more  sane  than  he." 

"But  you  will  aid  me?"  Borsdale  said. 

"Yes,  I  will  aid  you,  Philip,  for  in  Herrick's  case 
I  take  it  that  the  mischief  is  consummated  already; 
and  we,  I  think,  risk  nothing  worse  than  death.  But 
you  will  need  another  knife  a  little  later — a  knife 
that  will  be  clean." 

"I  had  forgotten."  Borsdale  withdrew,  and  pres- 
ently returned  with  a  bone-handled  knife.  And  then 
he  made  a  light.  "Are  you  quite  ready,  sir?" 

Sir  Thomas  Browne,  that  aging  amateur  of  the 
curious,  could  not  resist  a  laugh. 

And  then  they  sat  about  proceedings  of  which,  for 
obvious  reasons,  the  details  are  best  left  unrecorded. 
It  was  not  an  unconscionable  while  before  they  seemed 
to  be  aware  of  unusual  phenomena.  But  as  Sir 
Thomas  always  pointed  out,  in  subsequent  discussions, 
these  were  quite  possibly  the  fruitage  of  excited  imag- 
ination. 

"Now,  Philip! — now,  give  me  the  knife!"  cried  Sir 
Thomas  Browne.  He  knew  for  the  first  time,  despite 
many  previous  mischancy  happenings,  what  real  ter- 
ror was. 

The  room  was  thick  with  blinding  smoke  by  this,  so 
that  Borsdale  could  see  nothing  save  his  co-partner  in 
this  adventure.  Both  men  were  shaken  by  what  had 
occurred  before.  Borsdale  incuriously  perceived  that 
old  Sir  Thomas  rose,  tense  as  a  cat  about  to  pounce, 
and  that  he  caught  the  unstained  knife  from  Bors- 
120 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


dale's  hand,  and  flung  it  like  a  javelin  into  the  vapor 
which  encompassed  them.  This  gesture  stirred  the 
smoke  so  that  Borsdale  could  see  the  knife  quiver  and 
fall,  and  note  the  tiny  triangle  of  unbared  plaster  it  had 
cut  in  the  painted  woman's  breast.  Within  the  same 
instant  he  had  perceived  a  naked  man  who  staggered. 

"Is  adu  kronyeshnago /"  The  intruder's  thin, 

shrill  wail  was  that  of  a  frightened  child.  The  man 
strode  forward,  choked,  seemed  to  grope  his  way. 
His  face  was  not  good  to  look  at.  Horror  gripped 
and  tore  at  every  member  of  the  cadaverous  old  body, 
as  a  high  wind  tugs  at  a  flag.  The  two  witnesses  of 
Herrick's  agony  did  not  stir  during  the  instant  wherein 
the  frenzied  man  stooped,  moving  stiffly  like  an  ill- 
made  toy,  and  took  up  the  knife. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  knew  what  he  was  about  to  do,"  said 
Sir  Thomas  Browne  afterward,  in  his  quiet  fashion. 
"I  did  not  try  to  stop  him.  If  Herri ck  had  been  my 
dearest  friend,  I  would  not  have  interfered.  I  had 
seen  his  face,  you  comprehend.  Yes,  it  was  kinder 
to  let  him  die.  It  was  curious,  though,  as  he  stood 
there  hacking  his  chest,  how  at  each  stab  he  deliber- 
ately twisted  the  knife.  I  suppose  the  pain  distracted 
his  mind  from  what  he  was  remembering.  I  should 
have  forewarned  Borsdale  of  this  possible  outcome 
at  the  very  first,  I  suppose.  But,  then,  which  one  of 
us  is  always  wise?" 

So  this  adventure  came  to  nothing.  For  its  sig- 
nificance, if  any,  hinged  upon  Robert  Herrick's  sanity, 

121 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


which  was  at  best  a  disputable  quantity.  Grant  him 
insane,  and  the  whole  business,  as  Sir  Thomas  was  at 
large  pains  to  point  out,  dwindles  at  once  into  the  ir- 
responsible vagaries  of  a  madman. 

"And  all  the  while,  for  what  we  know,  he  had  been 
hiding  somewhere  in  the  house.  We  never  searched  it. 
Oh,  yes,  there  is  no  doubt  he  was  insane,"  said  Sir 
Thomas,  comfortably. 

"Faith!    what    he    moaned    was    gibberish,    of 


course " 


"Oddly  enough,  his  words  were  intelligible.  They 
meant  in  Russian  'Out  of  the  lowest  hell/  " 

"But,  why,  in  God's  name,  Russian?*' 

"I  am  sure  I  do  not  know,"  Sir  Thomas  replied ;  and 
he  did  not  appear  at  all  to  regret  his  ignorance. 

But  Borsdale  meditated,  disappointedly.  "Oh,  yes, 
the  outcome  is  ambiguous,  Sir  Thomas,  in  every  way. 
I  think  we  may  safely  take  it  as  a  warning,  in  any 
event,  that  this  world  of  ours,  whatever  its  deficien- 
cies, was  meant  to  be  inhabited  by  men  and  women 
only." 

"Now  I,"  was  Sir  Thomas's  verdict,  "prefer  to  take 
it  as  a  warning  that  insane  people  ought  to  be  re- 
strained." 

"Ah,  well,  insanity  is  only  one  of  the  many  forms 
of  being  abnormal.  Yes,  I  think  it  proves  that  all 
abnormal  people  ought  to  be  restrained.  Perhaps  it 
proves  that  they  are  very  potently  restrained,"  said 
Philip  Borsdale,  perversely. 

Perversely,  Sir  Thomas  always  steadfastly  pro- 
132 


CONCERNING     CORINNA 


tested,  because  he  said  that  to  believe  in  Herrick's 
sanity  was  not  conducive  to  your  own. 

So  Sir  Thomas  shrugged,  and  went  toward  the  open 
window.  Without  the  road  was  a  dazzling  gray  under 
the  noon  sun,  for  the  sky  was  cloudless.  The  ordered 
trees  were  rustling  pleasantly,  very  brave  in  their 
autumnal  liveries.  Under  a  maple  across  the  way 
some  seven  laborers  were  joking  lazily  as  they  ate  their 
dinner.  A  wagon  lumbered  by,  the  driver  whistling. 
In  front  of  the  house  a  woman  had  stopped  to  re- 
arrange the  pink  cap  of  the  baby  she  was  carrying. 
The  child  had  just  reached  up  fat  and  uncertain  little 
arms  to  kiss  her.  Nothing  that  Browne  saw  was  out 
of  ordinary,  kindly  human  life. 

"Well,  after  all,"  said  Sir  Thomas,  upon  a  sudden, 
"for  one,  I  think  it  is  an  endurable  world,  just  as  it 
stands." 

And  Borsdale  looked  up  from  a  letter  he  had  been 
reading.  It  was  from  a  woman  who  has  no  concern 
with  this  tale,  and  its  contents  were  of  no  importance  to 
any  one  save  Borsdale. 

"Now,  do  you  know,"  said  Philip  Borsdale,  "I  am 
beginning  to  think  you  the  most  sensible  man  of  my 
acquaintance !  Oh,  yes,  beyond  doubt  it  is  an  endurable 
sun-nurtured  world — just  as  it  stands.  It  makes  it 
doubly  odd  that  Dr.  Herrick  should  have  chosen 
always  to 

'Write  of  groves,  and  twilights,  and  to  sing 
The  court  of  Mab,  and  of  the  Fairy  King, 
And  write  of  Hell/  " 

123 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Sir  Thomas  touched  his  arm,  protestingly.  "Ah, 
but  you  have  forgotten  what  follows,  Philip 

'I  sing,  and  ever  shall, 

Of  Heaven, — and  hope  to  have  it  after  all.'  " 

"Well!  I  cry  Amen,"  said  Borsdale.  "But  I  wish 
I  could  forget  the  old  man's  face." 

"Oh,  and  I  also,"  Sir  Thomas  said.  "And  I  cry 
Amen  with  far  more  heartiness,  my  lad,  because  I,  too, 
once  dreamed  of — of  Corinna,  shall  we  say?" 


124 


OLIVIA'S   POTTAGE 


"MR.  WYCHERLEY  was  naturally  modest  until  King 
Charles  court,  that  late  disgrace  to  our  times,  corrupted 
him.  He  then  gave  himself  up  to  all  sorts  of  extrava- 
gances and  to  the  wildest  frolics  that  a  wanton  wit  could 
devise.  .  .  .  Never  was  so  much  ill-nature  in  a  pen  as 
in  his,  joined  with  so  much  good  nature  as  was  in  him- 
self, even  to  excess;  for  he  was  bountiful,  even  to  run 
himself  into  difficulties,  and  charitable  even  to  a  fault.  It 
was  not  that  he  was  free  from  the  failings  of  humanity, 
but  he  had  the  tenderness  of  it,  too,  which  made  every- 
body excuse  whom  everybody  loved;  and  even  the  as- 
perity of  his  verses  seems  to  have  been  forgiven." 


I  the  Plain  Dealer  am  to  act  to-day. 

****** 

Now,  you  shrewd  judges,  who  the  boxes  sway, 
Leading  the  ladies'  hearts  and  sense  astray, 
And  for  their  sakes,  see  all  and  hear  no  play ; 
Correct  your  cravats,  foretops,  lock  behind : 
The  dress  and  breeding  of  the  play  ne'er  mind ; 
For  the  coarse  dauber  of  the  coming  scenes 
To  follow  life  and  nature  only  means, 
Displays  you  as  you  are,  makes  his  fine  woman 
A  mercenary  jilt  and  true  to  no  man, 
Shows  men  of  wit  and  pleasure  of  the  age 
Are  as  dull  rogues  as  ever  cumber'd  stage. 

WILLIAM  WYCHERLEY.    Prologue 
to  The  Plain  Dealer. 


OLIVIA'S  POTTAGE 


IT  was  in  the  May  of  1680  that  Mr.  William 
Wycherley  went  into  the  country  to  marry  the 
famed  heiress,  Mistress  Araminta  Vining,  as  he 
had  previously  settled  with  her  father,  and  found  her 
to  his  vast  relief  a  very  personable  girl.  She  had 
in  consequence  a  host  of  admirers,  pre-eminent  among 
whom  was  young  Robert  Minifie  of  Milanor.  Mr. 
Wycherley,  a  noted  stickler  for  etiquette,  decorously 
made  bold  to  question  Mr.  Minifie's  taste  in  a  dispute 
concerning  waistcoats.  A  duel  was  decorously  ar- 
ranged and  these  two  met  upon  the  narrow  beach  of 
Teviot  Bay. 

Theirs  was  a  spirited  encounter,  lasting  for  ten 
energetic  minutes.  Then  Wycherley  pinked  Mr. 
Minifie  in  the  shoulder,  just  as  the  dramatist,  a  favorite 
pupil  of  Gerard's,  had  planned  to  do;  and  the  four 
gentlemen  parted  with  every  imaginable  courtesy,  since 
the  wounded  man  and  the  two  seconds  were  to  return 
by  boat  to  Mr.  Minifie's  house  at  Milanor. 

More  lately  Wycherley  walked  in  the  direction  of 
Ouseley  Manor,  whistling  Love's  a  Toy.  Honor  was 

127 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


satisfied,  and,  happily,  as  he  reflected,  at  no  expense 
of  life.  He  was  a  kindly  hearted  fop,  and  more  than 
once  had  killed  his  man  with  perfectly  sincere  regret. 
But  in  putting  on  his  coat — it  was  the  black  camlet 
coat  with  silver  buttons — he  had  overlooked  his  sleeve- 
links  ;  and  he  did  not  recognize,  for  twenty-four  event- 
ful hours,  the  full  importance  of  his  carelessness. 

In  the  heart  of  Figgis  Wood,  the  incomparable 
Countess  of  Drogheda,  aunt  to  Mr.  Wycherley's  be- 
trothed, and  a  noted  leader  of  fashion,  had  presently 
paused  at  sight  of  him — laughing  a  little — and  with 
one  tiny  hand  had  made  as  though  to  thrust  back  the 
staghound  which  accompanied  her.  "Your  humble 
servant,  Mr.  Swashbuckler,"  she  said ;  and  then :  "But 
oh !  you  have  not  hurt  the  lad  ?"  she  demanded,  with  a 
tincture  of  anxiety. 

"Nay,  after  a  short  but  brilliant  engagement/' 
Wycherley  returned,  "Mr.  Minifie  was  very  harmlessly 
perforated;  and  in  consequence  I  look  to  be  married 
on  Thursday,  after  all." 

"Let  me  die  but  Cupid  never  meets  with  anything 
save  inhospitality  in  this  gross  world!"  cried  Lady 
Drogheda.  "For  the  boy  is  heels  over' head  in  love 
with  Araminta, — oh,  a  second  Almanzor!  And  my 
niece  does  not  precisely  hate  him  either,  let  me  tell 
you,  William,  for  all  your  month's  assault  of  essences 
and  perfumed  gloves  and  apricot  paste  and  other  small 
artillery  of  courtship.  La,  my  dear,  was  it  only  a 
month  ago  we  settled  your  future  over  a  couple  of 
128 


OLIVIA'S    POTTAGE 


Naples  biscuit  and  a  bottle  of  Rhenish?''  She  walked 
beside  him  now,  and  the  progress  of  these  exquisites 
was  leisurely.  There  were  many  trees  at  hand  so 
huge  as  to  necessitate  a  considerable  detour. 

"Egad,  it  is  a  month  and  three  days  over,"  Wycher- 
ley  retorted,  "since  you  suggested  your  respected 
brother-in-law  was  ready  to  pay  my  debts  in  full,  upon 
condition  I  retaliated  by  making  your  adorable  niece 
Mistress  Wycherley.  Well,  I  stand  to-day  indebted  to 
him  for  an  advance  of  £1500  and  am  no  more  afraid 
of  bailiffs.  We  have  performed  a  very  creditable 
stroke  of  business;  and  the  day  after  to-morrow  you 
will  have  fairly  earned  your  £500  for  arranging  the 
marriage.  Faith,  and  in  earnest  of  this,  I  already 
begin  to  view  you  through  appropriate  lenses  as  un- 
doubtedly the  most  desirable  aunt  in  the  universe." 

Nor  was  there  any  unconscionable  stretching  of  the 
phrase.  Through  the  quiet  forest,  untouched  as  yet 
by  any  fidgeting  culture,  and  much  as  it  was  when 
John  Lackland  wooed  Hawisa  under  its  venerable 
oaks,  old  even  then,  the  little  widow  moved  like  a  light 
flame.  She  was  clothed  throughout  in  scarlet,  after 
her  high-hearted  style  of  dress,  and  carried  a  tall  staff 
of  ebony;  and  the  gold  head  of  it  was  farther  from 
the  dead  leaves  than  was  her  mischievous  countenance. 
The  big  staghound  lounged  beside  her.  She  pleased 
the  eye,  at  least,  did  this  heartless,  merry  and  selfish 
Olivia,  whom  Wycherley  had  so  ruthlessly  depicted 
in  his  Plain  Dealer.  To  the  last  detail  Wycherley 

129 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


found  her,  as  he  phrased  it,  "mignonne  et  piquante" 
and  he  told  her  so. 

Lady  Drogheda  observed,  "Fiddle-de-dee!"  Lady 
Drogheda  continued:  "Yes,  I  am  a  fool,  of  course, 
but  then  I  still  remember  Bessington,  and  the  boy 
that  went  mad  there " 

"Because  of  a  surfeit  of  those  dreams  'such  as 
the  poets  know  when  they  are  young.'  Sweet  chuck, 
beat  not  the  bones  of  the  buried ;  when  he  breathed  he 
was  a  likely  lad,"  Mr.  Wycherley  declared,  with  sig- 
nal gravity. 

"Oh,  la,  la!"  she  flouted  him.  "Well,  in  any  event 
you  were  the  first  gentleman  in  England  to  wear  a 
neckcloth  of  Flanders  lace." 

"And  you  were  the  first  person  of  quality  to  eat 
cheesecakes  in  Spring  Garden,"  he  not  half  so  mirth- 
fully retorted.  "So  we  have  not  entirely  failed  in 
life,  it  may  be,  after  all." 

She  made  of  him  a  quite  irrelevant  demand :  "D'ye 
fancy  Esau  was  contented,  William  ?" 

"I  fancy  he  was  fond  of  pottage,  madam ;  and  that, 
as  I  remember,  he  got  his  pottage.  Come,  now,  a 
tangible  bowl  of  pottage,  piping  hot,  is  not  to  be 
despised  in  such  a  hazardous  world  as  ours  is." 

She  was  silent  for  a  lengthy  while.  "Lord,  Lord, 
how  musty  all  that  brave,  sweet  nonsense  seems !"  she 
said,  and  almost  sighed.  "Eh,  well !  le  vin  est  tire,  et 
il  faut  le  boire" 

"My  adorable  aunt!  Let  us  put  it  a  thought  less 
dumpishly;  and  render  thanks  because  our  pottage 
130 


POTTAGE 


smokes  upon  the  table,  and  we  are  blessed  with  ex- 
cellent appetites." 

"So  that  in  a  month  we  will  be  back  again  in  the 
playhouses  and  Hyde  Park  and  Mulberry  Garden,  or 
nodding  to  each  other  in  the  New  Exchange, — you 

with  your  debts  paid,  and  I  with  my  £500 ?"  She 

paused  to  pat  the  staghound's  head.  "Lord  Remon 
came  this  afternoon,"  said  Lady  Drogheda,  and  with 
averted  eyes. 

"I  do  not  approve  of  Remon,"  he  announced. 
"Nay,  madam,  even  a  Siren  ought  to  spare  her  kin  and 
show  some  mercy  toward  the  more  stagnant-blooded 
fish." 

And  Lady  Drogheda  shrugged.  "He  is  very 
wealthy,  and  I  am  lamentably  poor.  One  must  not 
seek  noon  at  fourteen  o' clock  or  clamor  for  better 
bread  than  was  ever  made  from  wheat." 

Mr.  Wycherley  laughed,  after  a  pregnant  silence. 

"By  heavens,  madam,  you  are  in  the  right!  So  I 
shall  walk  no  more  in  Figgis  Wood,  for  its  old  magic 
breeds  too  many  day-dreams.  Besides,  we  have  been 
serious  for  half-an-hour.  Now,  then,  let  us  discuss 
theology,  dear  aunt,  or  millinery,  or  metaphysics,  or 
the  King's  new  statue  at  Windsor,  or,  if  you  will,  the 
last  Spring  Garden  scandal.  Or  let  us  count  the  leaves 
upon  this  tree;  and  aftenvard  I  will  enumerate  my 
reasons  for  believing  yonder  crescent  moon  to  be  the 
paring  of  the  Angel  Gabriel's  left  thumb-nail." 

She  was  a  woman  of  eloquent  silences  when  there 
was  any  need  of  them ; .  and  thus  the  fop  and  the 


THE      CERTAIN      HOUR 


coquette  traversed  the  remainder  of  that  solemn  wood 
without  any  further  speech.  Modish  people  would 
have  esteemed  them  unwontedly  glum. 

Wycherley  discovered  in  a  while  the  absence  of  his 
sleeve-links,  and  was  properly  vexed  by  the  loss  of 
these  not  unhandsome  trinkets,  the  gifts  of  Lady 
Castlemaine  in  the  old  days  when  Mr.  Wycherley  was 
the  King's  successful  rival  for  her  favors.  But 
Wycherley  knew  the  tide  filled  Teviot  Bay  and  won- 
dering fishes  were  at  liberty  to  muzzle  the  toys,  by  this, 
and  merely  shrugged  at  his  mishap,  midcourse  in 
toilet. 

Mr.  Wycherley,  upon  mature  deliberation,  wore  the 
green  suit  with  yellow  ribbons,  since  there  was  a  ball 
that  night  in  honor  of  his  nearing  marriage,  and  a 
confluence  of  gentry  to  attend  it.  Miss  Vining  and 
he  walked  through  a  minuet  to  some  applause ;  the  two 
were  heartily  acclaimed  a  striking  couple,  and  con- 
gratulations beat  about  their  ears  as  thick  as  sugar- 
plums in  a  carnival.  And  at  nine  you  might  have 
found  the  handsome  dramatist  alone  upon  the  East 
Terrace  of  Ouseley,  pacing  to  and  fro  in  the  moon- 
light, and  complacently  reflecting  upon  his  quite  in- 
disputable and,  past  doubt,  unmerited  good  fortune. 

There  was  never  any  night  in  June  which  nature 
planned  the  more  adroitly.  Soft  and  warm  and  wind- 
less, lit  by  a  vainglorious  moon  and  every  star  that 
ever  shone,  the  beauty  of  this  world  caressed  and 
heartened  its  beholder  like  a  gallant  music.  Our 
132 


OLIVIA'S    POTTAGE 


universe,  Mr.  Wycherley  conceded  willingly,  was  ex- 
cellent and  kindly,  and  the  Arbiter  of  it  too  generous ; 
for  here  was  he,  the  wastrel,  like  the  third  prince  at 
the  end  of  a  fairy-tale,  the  master  of  a  handsome  wife, 
and  a  fine  house  and  fortune.  Somewhere,  he  knew, 
young  Minifie,  with  his  arm  in  a  sling,  was  pleading 
with  Mistress  Araminta  for  the  last  time;  and  this 
reflection  did  not  greatly  trouble  Mr.  Wycherley,  since 
incommunicably  it  tickled  his  vanity.  He  was  chuck- 
ling when  he  came  to  the  open  window. 

Within  a  woman  was  singing,  to  the  tinkling  ac- 
companiment of  a  spinet,  for  the  delectation  of  Lord 
Remon.  She  was  not  uncomely,  and  the  hard,  lean, 
stingy  countenance  of  the  attendant  nobleman  was 
almost  genial.  Wycherley  understood  with  a  great 
rending  shock,  as  though  the  thought  were  novel,  that 
Olivia,  Lady  Drogheda,  designed  to  marry  this  man, 
who  grinned  within  finger's  reach — or,  rather,  to  ally 
herself  with  Remon's  inordinate  wealth, — and  without 
any  heralding  a  brutal  rage  and  hatred  of  all  created 
things  possessed  the  involuntary  eavesdropper. 

She  looked  up  into  Remon's  face  and,  laughing  with 
such  bright  and  elfin  mirth  as  never  any  other  woman 
showed,  thought  Wycherley,  she  broke  into  another 
song.  She  would  have  spared  Mr.  Wycherley  that 
had  she  but  known  him  to  be  within  earshot.  .;•.-  . 
Oh,  it  was  only  Lady  Drogheda  who  sang,  he  knew, — 
the  seasoned  gamester  and  coquette,  the  veteran  of 
London  and  of  Cheltenham, — but  the  woman  had 
no  right  to  charm  this  haggler  with  a  voice  that  was, 

133 


THE      C  E  RTAI  N      HOUR 


not  hers.  For  it  was  the  voice  of  another  Olivia,  who 
was  not  a  fine  and  urban  lady,  and  who  lived  nowhere 
any  longer;  it  was  the  voice  of  a  soft-handed,  tender, 
jeering  girl,  whom  he  alone  remembered;  and  a  sick, 
illimitable  rage  grilled  in  each  vein  of  him  as  liltingly 
she  sang,  for  Remon,  the  old  and  foolish  song  which 
Wycherley  had  made  in  her  praise  very  long  ago,  and 
of  which  he  might  not  ever  forget  the  most  trivial 
word. 

Men,  even  beaux,  are  strangely  constituted;  and 
so  it  needed  only  this — the  sudden  stark  brute  jealousy 
of  one  male  animal  for  another.  That  was  the  clumsy 
hand  which  now  unlocked  the  dyke;  and  like  a  flood, 
tall  and  resistless,  came  the  recollection  of  their  far- 
off  past  and  of  its  least  dear  trifle,  of  all  the  aspira- 
tions and  absurdities  and  splendors  of  their  com- 
mon youth,  and  found  him  in  its  path,  a  painted 
fellow,  a  spendthrift  king  of  the  mode,  a  most  notable 
authority  upon  the  set  of  a  peruke,  a  penniless,  spent 
connoisseur  of  stockings,  essences  and  cosmetics. 

He  got  but  little  rest  this  night. 

There  were  too  many  plaintive  memories  which 
tediously  plucked  him  back,  with  feeble  and  innumer- 
able hands,  as  often  as  he  trod  upon  the  threshold 
of  sleep.  Then  too,  there  were  so  many  dreams, 
half-waking,  and  not  only  of  Olivia  Chichele,  naive 
and  frank  in  divers  rural  circumstances,  but  rather 
of  Olivia,  Lady  Drogheda,  that  perfect  piece  of  arti- 
fice; of  how  exquisite  she  was!  how  swift  and  volatile 
134 


in  every  movement!  how  airily  indomitable,  and  how 
mendacious  to  the  tips, of  her  polished  finger-nails! 
and  how  she  always  seemed  to  flit  about  this  world  as 
joyously,  alertly,  and  as  colorfully  as  some  ornate  and 
tiny  bird  of  the  tropics! 

But  presently  parochial  birds  were  wrangling  under- 
neath the  dramatist's  window,  while  he  tossed  and  as- 
sured himself  that  he  was  sleepier  than  any  saint  who 
ever  snored  in  Ephesus;  and  presently  one  hand  of 
Moncrieff  was  drawing  the  bed-curtains,  while  the 
other  carefully  balanced  a  mug  of  shaving-water. 

Wycherley  did  not  see  her  all  that  morning,  for 
Lady  Drogheda  was  fatigued,  or  so  a  lackey  in- 
formed him,  and  as  yet  kept  her  chamber.  His 
Araminta  he  found  deplorably  sullen.  So  the  dra- 
matist devoted  the  better  part  of  this  day  to  a  refitting 
of  his  wedding-suit,  just  come  from  London;  for 
Moncrieff,  an  invaluable  man,  had  adjudged  the 
pockets  to  be  placed  too  high;  and,  be  the  punish- 
ment deserved  or  no,  Mr.  Wycherley  had  never  heard 
that  any  victim  of  law  appeared  the  more  admirable 
upon  his  scaffold  for  being  slovenly  in  his  attire. 

Thus  it  was  as  late  as  five  in  the  afternoon  that, 
wearing  the  peach-colored  suit  trimmed  with  scar- 
let ribbon,  and  a  new  French  beaver,  the  exquisite 
came  upon  Lady  Drogheda  walking  in  the  gardens 
with  only  an  appropriate  peacock  for  company.  She 
was  so  beautiful  and  brilliant  and  so  little — so  like 
a  famous  gem  too  suddenly  disclosed,  and  therefore 

135 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


oddly  disparate  in  all  these  qualities,  that  his  decorous 
pleasant  voice  might  quite  permissibly  have  shaken 
a  trifle  (as  indeed  it  did"),  when  Mr.  Wycherley  im- 
plored Lady  Drogheda  to  walk  with  him  to  Teviot 
Bay,  on  the  off-chance  of  recovering  his  sleeve-links. 

And  there  they  did  find  one  of  the  trinkets,  but  the 
tide  had  swept  away  the  other,  or  else  the  sand  had 
buried  it.  So  they  rested  there  upon  the  rocks,  after 
an  unavailing  search,  and  talked  of  many  trifles,  amid 
surroundings  oddly  incongruous. 

For  this  Teviot  Bay  is  a  primeval  place,  a  deep-cut, 
narrow  notch  in  the  tip  of  Carnrick,  and  is  walled  by 
cliffs  so  high  and  so  precipitous  that  they  exclude  a 
view  of  anything  except  the  ocean.  The  bay  opens 
due  west;  and  its  white  barriers  were  now  develop- 
ing a  violet  tinge,  for  this  was  on  a  sullen  afternoon, 
and  the  sea  was  ruffled  by  spiteful  gusts.  Wycherley 
could  find  no  color  anywhere  save  in  this  glowing,  tiny 
and  exquisite  woman;  and  everywhere  was  a  gigan- 
tic peace,  vexed  only  when  high  overhead  a  sea- fowl 
jeered  at  these  modish  persons,  as  he  flapped  toward 
an  impregnable  nest. 

"And  by  this  hour  to-morrow,"  thought  Mr. 
Wycherley,  "I  shall  be  chained  to  that  good,  strapping, 
wholesome  Juno  of  a  girl !" 

So  he  fell  presently  into  a  silence,  staring  at  the 
vacant  west,  which  was  like  a  huge  and  sickly  pearl, 
not  thinking  of  anything  at  all,  but  longing  poig- 
nantly for  something  which  was  very  beautiful  and 
strange  and  quite  unattainable,  with  precisely  that 

136 


OLIVIA'S    POTTAGE 


anguish  he  had  sometimes  known  in  awaking  from 
a  dream  of  which  he  could  remember  nothing  save 
its  piercing  loveliness. 

"And  thus  ends  the  last  day  of  our  bachelorhood !" 
said  Lady  Drogheda,  upon  a  sudden.  "You  have 
played  long  enough — La,  William,  you  have  led  the 
fashion  for  ten  years,  you  have  written  four  merry 
comedies,  and  you  have  laughed  as  much  as  any  man 
alive,  but  you  have  pulled  down  all  that  nature  raised 
in  you,  I  think.  Was  it  worth  while?" 

"Faith,  but  nature's  monuments  are  no  longer  the 
last  cry  in  architecture,"  he  replied;  "and  I  believe 
that  The  Plain  'Dealer  and  The  Country  Wife  will 
hold  their  own."  \f 

"And  you  wrote  them  when  you  were  just  a  boy! 
Ah,  yes,  you  might  have  been  our  English  Moliere, 
my  dear.  And,  instead,  you  have  elected  to  become 
an  authority  upon  cravats  and  waistcoats." 

"Eh,  madam" — he  smiled — "there  was  a  time  when 
I  too  was  foolishly  intent  to  divert  the  leisure  hours 
of  posterity.  But  reflection- assured  me  that  posterity 
had,  thus  far,  done  very  little  to  place  me  under  that 
or  any  Other  obligation.  Ah,  no!  Youth,  health  and 
— though  I  say  it — a  modicum  of  intelligence  are 
loaned  to  most  of  us  for  a  while,  and  for  a  terribly 
brief  while.  They  are  but  loans,  and  Time  is  waiting 
greedily  to  snatch  them  from  us.  For  the  perturbed 
usurer  knows  that  he  is  lending  us,  perforce,  three 
priceless  possessions,  and  that  till  our  lease  runs  out 
we  are  free  to  dispose  of  them  as  we  elect.  Now, 

137 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


had  I  jealously  devoted  my  allotment  of  these  treas- 
ures toward  securing  for  my  impressions  of  the  uni- 
verse a  place  in  yet  unprinted  libraries,  I  would  have 
made  an  investment  from  which  I  could  not  possibly 
have  derived  any  pleasure,  and  which  would  have 
been  to  other  people  of  rather  dubious  benefit.  In 
consequence,  I  chose  a  wiser  and  devouter  course." 

This  statement  Lady  Drogheda  afforded  the  com- 
mentary of  a  grimace. 

"Why,  look  you,"  Wycherley  philosophized,  "have 
you  never  thought  what  a  vast  deal  of  loving  and 
painstaking  labor  must  have  gone  to  make  the  world 
we  inhabit  so  beautiful  and  so  complete?  For  it  was 
not  enough  to  evolve  and  set  a  glaring  sun  in  heaven, 
to  marshal  the  big  stars  about  the  summer  sky,  but 
even  in  the  least  frequented  meadow  every  butterfly 
must  have  his  pinions  jeweled,  very  carefully,  and 
every  lovely  blade  of  grass  be  fashioned  separately. 
The  hand  that  yesterday  arranged  the  Himalayas 
found  time  to  glaze  the  wings  of  a  midge!  Now, 
most  of  us  could  design  a  striking  Flood,  or  even  a 
Last  Judgment,  since  the  canvas  is  so  big  and  the 
colors  used  so  virulent;  but  to  paint  a  snuff-box  per- 
fectly you  must  love  the  labor  for  its  own  sake,  and 
pursue  it  without  even  an  underthought  of  the  per- 
formance's ultimate  appraisement.  People  do  not 
often  consider  the  simple  fact  that  it  is  enough  to 
bait,  and  quite  superfluous  to  veneer,  a  trap;  indeed, 
those  generally  acclaimed  the  best  of  persons  insist 
this  world  is  but  an  antechamber,  full  of  gins  and  pit- 

138 


POTTAGE 


falls,  which  must  be  scurried  through  with  shut  eyes. 
And  the  more  fools  they,  as  all  we  poets  know!  for 
to  enjoy  a  sunset,  or  a  glass  of  wine,  or  even  to  admire 
the  charms  of  a  handsome  woman,  is  to  render  the 
Artificer  of  all  at  least  the  tribute  of  appreciation." 

But  she  said,  in  a  sharp  voice:  "William,  Wil- 
liam  !"  And  he  saw  that  there  was  no  beach  now 

in  Teviot  Bay  except  the  dwindling  crescent  at  its 
farthest  indentation  on  which  they  sat. 

Yet  his  watch,  on  consultation,  recorded  only  five 
o'clock;  and  presently  Mr.  Wycherley  laughed,  not 
very  loudly.  The  two  had  risen,  and  her  face  was 
a  tiny  snowdrift  where  every  touch  of  rouge  and 
grease-pencils  showed  crudely. 

"Look  now,"  said  Wycherley,  "upon  what  trifles 
our  lives  hinge !  Last  night  I  heard  you  singing,  and 
the  song  brought  back  so  many  things  done  long  ago, 
and  made  me  so  unhappy  that — ridiculous  conclusion ! 
— I  forgot  to  wind  my  watch.  Well!  the  tide  is  buf- 
feting at  either  side  of  Carnrick ;  within  the  hour  this 
place  will  be  submerged;  and,  in  a  phrase,  we  are 
as  dead  as  Hannibal  or  Hector." 

She  said,  very  quiet:  "Could  you  not  gain  the 
mainland  if  you  stripped  and  swam  for  it?" 

"Why,  possibly,"  the  beau  conceded.  "Meanwhile 
you  would  have  drowned.  Faith,  we  had  as  well 
make  the  best  of  it." 

Little  Lady  Drogheda  touched  his  sleeve,  and  her 
hand  (as  the  man  noted)  did  not  shake  at  all,  nor 
did  her  delicious  piping  voice  shake  either.  "You 

139 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


cannot  save  me.    I  know  it.     I  am  not  frightened.     I 
bid  you  save  yourself." 

"Permit  me  to  assist  you  to  that  ledge  of  rock/' 
Mr.  Wycherley  answered,  "which  is  a  trifle  higher 
than  the  beach;  and  I  pray  you,  Olivia,  do  not  mar 
the  dignity  of  these  last  passages  by  talking  nonsense." 

For  he  had  spied  a  ledge,  not  inaccessible,  some  four 
feet  higher  than  the  sands,  and  it  offered  them  at  least 
a  respite.  And  within  the  moment  they  had  secured 
this  niggardly  concession,  intent  to  die,  as  Wycherley 
observed,  like  hurt  mice  upon  a  pantry-shelf.  The 
business  smacked  of  disproportion,  he  considered, 
although  too  well-bred  to  say  as  much;  for  here  was 
a  big  ruthless  league  betwixt  earth  and  sea,  and  with 
no  loftier  end  than  to  crush  a  fop  and  a  coquette, 
whose  speedier  extinction  had  been  dear  at  the  ex- 
pense of  a  shilling's  worth  of  arsenic! 

Then  the  sun  came  out,  to  peep  at  these  trapped, 
comely  people,  and  doubtless  to  get  appropriate  mirth 
at  the  spectacle.  He  hung  low  against  the  misty  sky 
a  clearly-rounded  orb  that  did  not  dazzle,  but  merely 
shone  with  the  cold  glitter  of  new  snow  upon  a  fair 
December  day ;  and  for  the  rest,  the  rocks,  and  watery 
heavens,  and  all  these  treacherous  and  lapping  waves, 
were  very  like  a  crude  draught  of  the  world,  dashed 
off  conceivably  upon  the  day  before  creation. 

These  arbiters  of  social  London  did  not  speak  at 
all ;  and  the  bleak  waters  crowded  toward  them  as  in 
a  f ret f til  dispute  of  precedence. 

Then  the  woman  said:     "Last  night  Lord  Remon 
140 


OLIVIA'S    POTTAGE 


asked  me  to  marry  him,  and  I  declined  the  honor.  For 
this  place  is  too  like  Bessington — and,  I  think,  the 
past  month  has  changed  everything " 

"I  thought  you  had  forgotten  Bessington,"  lie  said, 
"long,  long  ago." 

"I  did  not  ever  quite  forget — Oh,  the  garish  years," 
she  wailed,  "since  then !  And  how  I  hated  you,  Wil- 
liam— and  yet  liked  you,  too, — because  you  were  never 
the  boy  that  I  remembered,  and  people  would  not  let 
you  be!  And  how  I  hated  them — the  huzzies!  For 
I  had  to  see  you  almost  every  day,  and  it  was  never 
you  I  saw — Ah,  William,  come  back  for  just  a  little, 
little  while,  and  be  an  honest  boy  for  just  the  moment 
that  we  are  dying,  and  not  an  elegant  fine  gentleman !" 

"Nay,  my  dear,"  the  dramatist  composedly  an- 
swered, "an  hour  of  naked  candor  is  at  hand.  Life 
is  a  masquerade  where  Death,  it  would  appear,  is 
master  of  the  ceremonies.  Now  he  sounds  his  whis- 
tle; and  we  who  went  about  the  world  so  long  as 
harlequins  must  unmask,  and  for  all  time  put  aside  our 
abhorrence  of  the  disheveled.  For  in  sober  verity, 
this  is  Death  who  comes,  Olivia, — though  I  had 
thought  that  at  his  advent  one  would  be  afraid." 

Yet  apprehension  of  this  gross  and  unavoidable 
adventure,  so  soon  to  be  endured,  thrilled  him,  and 
none  too  lightly.  It  seemed  unfair  that  death  should 
draw  near  thus  sensibly,  with  never  a  twinge  or  ache 
to  herald  its  arrival.  Why,  there  were  fifty  years 
of  life  in  this  fine,  nimble  body  but  for  any  con- 

141 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


tretemps  like  that  of  the  deplorable  present!  Thus 
his  meditations  stumbled. 

"Oh,  William/'  Lady  Drogheda  bewailed,  "it  is  all 
so  big — the  incurious  west,  and  the  sea,  and  these 
rocks  that  were  old  in  Noah's  youth, — and  we  are  so 
little !" 

"Yes,"  he  returned,  and  took  her  hand,  because 
their  feet  were  wetted  now;  "the  trap  and  its  small 
prey  are  not  commensurate.  The  stage  is  set  for  a 
Homeric  death-scene,  and  we  two  profane  an  over- 
ambitious  background.  For  who  are  we  that  Heaven 
should  have  rived  the  world  before  time  was,  to  trap 
us,  and  should  make  of  the  old  sea  a  f owling-net  ?" 
Their  eyes  encountered,  and  he  said,  with  a  strange 
gush  of  manliness:  "Yet  Heaven  is  kind.  I  am 
bound  even  in  honor  now  to  marry  Mistress  Ara- 
minta;  and  you  would  marry  Remon  in  the  end, 
Olivia, — ah,  yes!  for  we  are  merely  moths,  my  dear, 
and  luxury  is  a  disastrously  brilliant  lamp.  But  here 
are  only  you  and  I  and  the  master  of  all  ceremony. 
And  yet — I  would  we  were  a  little  worthier,  Olivia!" 

"You  have  written  four  merry  comedies  and  you 
were  the  first  gentleman  in  England  to  wear  a  neck- 
cloth of  Flanders  lace,"  she  answered,  and  her  smile 
was  sadder  than  weeping. 

"And  you  were  the  first  person  of  quality  to  eat 
cheese-cakes  in  Spring  Garden.  There  you  have  our 
epitaphs,  if  we  in  truth  have  earned  an  epitaph  who 
have  not  ever  lived." 

"No,  we  have  only  laughed — Laugh  now,  for  the 
143 


OLIVIA'S    POTTAGE 


last  time,  and  hearten  me,  my  handsome  William! 
And  yet  could  I  but  come  to  God,"  the  woman  said, 
with  a  new  voice,  "and  make  it  clear  to  Him  just  how 
it  all  fell  out,  and  beg  for  one  more  chance!  How 
heartily  I  would  pray  then !" 

"And  I  would  cry  Amen  to  all  that  prayer  must 
of  necessity  contain/'  he  answered.  "Oh!"  said 
Wycherley,  "just  for  applause  and  bodily  comfort  and 
the  envy  of  innumerable  other  fools  we  two  have  bar- 
tered a  great  heritage!  I  think  our  corner  of  the 
world  will  lament  us  for  as  much  as  a  week;  but  I 
fear  lest  Heaven  may  not  condescend  to  set  apart 
the  needful  time  wherein  to  frame  a  suitable  chastise- 
ment for  such  poor  imbeciles.  Olivia,  I  have  loved 
you  all  my  life,  and  I  have  been  faithful  neither  to 
you  nor  to  myself!  I  love  you  so  that  I  am  not 
afraid  even  now,  since  you  are  here,  and  so  entirely 
that  I  have  forgotten  how  to  plead  my  cause  con- 
vincingly. And  I  have  had  practice,  let  me  tell 
you.  ...  !"  Then  he  shook  his  head  and  smiled. 
"But  candor  is  not  a  la  mode.  See,  now,  to  what  out- 
moded and  bucolic  frenzies  nature  brings  even  us  at 
last." 

She  answered  only,  as  she  motioned  seaward, 
"Look!" 

And  what  Mr.  Wycherley  saw  was  a  substantial 
boat  rowed  by  four  of  Mr.  Minifie's  attendants;  and 
in  the  bow  of  the  vessel  sat  that  wounded  gentleman 
himself,  regarding  Wycherley  and  Lady  Drogheda 

143 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


with  some  disfavor;  and  beside  the  younger  man  was 
Mistress  Araminta  Vining. 

It  was  a  perturbed  Minifie  who  broke  the  silence. 
"This  is  very  awkward,"  he  said,  "because  Araminta 
and  i  are  eloping.  We  mean  to  be  married  this  same 
night  at  Milanor.  And  deuce  take  it,  Mr.  Wycherley ! 
I  can't  leave  you  there  to  drown,  any  more  than  in 
the  circumstances  I  can  ask  you  to  make  one  of  the 
party." 

"Mr.  Wycherley,"  said  his  companion,  with  far 
more  asperity,  "the  vanity  and  obduracy  of  a  cruel 
father  have  forced  me  to  the  adoption  of  this  des- 
perate measure.  Toward  yourself  I  entertain  no  ill- 
feeling,  nor  indeed  any  sentiment  at  all  except  the 
most  profound  contempt.  My  aunt  will,  of  course, 
accompany  us;  for  yourself,  you  will  do  as  you  please; 
but  in  any  event  I  solemnly  protest  that  I  spurn  your 
odious  pretensions,  release  myself  hereby  from  an 
enforced  and  hideous  obligation,  and  in  a  phrase 
would  not  marry  you  in  order  to  be  Queen  of  Eng- 
land." 

"Miss  Vining,  I  had  hitherto  admired  you,"  the 
beau  replied,  with  fervor,  "but  now  esteem  is  changed 
to  adoration." 

Then  he  turned  to  his  Olivia.  "Madam,  you  will 
pardon  the  awkward  but  unavoidable  publicity  of  my 
proceeding.  I  am  a  ruined  man.  I  owe  your  brother- 
in-law  some  £1500,  and,  oddly  enough,  I  mean  to  pay 
him.  I  must  sell  Jephcot  and  Skene  Minor,  but  while 
life  lasts  I  shall  keep  Bessington  and  all  its  memories. 
144 


POTTAGE 


Meanwhile  there  is  a  clergyman  waiting  at  Milanor. 
So  marry  me  to-night,  Olivia;  and  we  will  go  back 
to  Bessington  to-morrow." 

'To  Bessington !"  she  said.  It  was  as  though 

she  spoke  of  something  very  sacred.  Then  very  mu- 
sically Lady  Drogheda  laughed,  and  to  the  eye  she 
was  all  flippancy.  "La,  William,  I  can't  bury  myself 
in  the  country  until  the  end  of  time,"  she  said,  "and 
make  interminable  custards,"  she  added,  "and  super- 
intend the  poultry,"  she  said,  "and  for  recreation  play 
short  whist  with  the  vicar." 

And  it  seemed  to  Mr.  Wycherley  that  he  had  gone 
divinely  mad.  "Don't  lie  to  me,  Olivia.  You  are 
thinking  there  are  yet  a  host  of  heiresses  who  would 
be  glad  to  be  a  famous  beau's  wife  at  however  dear 
a  cost.  But  don't  lie  to  me.  Don't  even  try  to  seem 
the  airy  and  bedizened  woman  I  have  known  so  long. 
All  that  is  over  now.  Death  tapped  us  on  the  shoulder, 
and,  if  only  for  a  moment,  the  masks  were  dropped. 
And  life  is  changed  now,  oh,  everything  is  changed! 
Then,  come,  my  dear !  let  us  be  wise  and  very  honest. 
Let  us  concede  it  is  still  possible  for  me  to  find  an- 
other heiress,  and  for  you  to  marry  Remon;  let  us 
grant  it  the  only  outcome  of  our  common-sense!  and 
for  all  that,  laugh,  and  fling  away  the  pottage,  and 
be  more  wise  than  reason." 

She  irresolutely  said :  "I  cannot.  Matters  are  al- 
tered now.  It  would  be  madness " 

"It  would  undoubtedly  be  madness,"  Mr.  Wycher- 
ley assented.  "But  then  I  am  so  tired  of  being  ra- 

145 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


tional!  Oh,  Olivia,"  this  former  arbiter  of  taste  ab- 
surdly babbled,  "if  I  lose  you  now  it  is  forever!  and 
there  is  no  health  in  me  save  when  I  am  with  you. 
Then  alone  I  wish  to  do  praiseworthy  things,  to  be 
all  which  the  boy  we  know  of  should  have  grown 
to.  ...  See  how  profoundly  shameless  I  am  become 
when,  with  such  an  audience,  I  take  refuge  in  the  piti- 
ful base  argument  of  my  own  weakness!  But,  my 
dear,  I  want  you  so  that  nothing  else  in  the  world 
means  anything  to  me.  I  want  you!  and  all  my  life 
I  have  wanted  you." 

"Boy,  boy !"  she  answered,  and  her  fine  hands 

had  come  to  Wycherley,  as  white  birds  flutter  home- 
ward. But  even  then  she  had  to  deliberate  the  mat- 
ter— since  the  habits  of  many  years  are  not  put  aside 
like  outworn  gloves, — and  for  innumerable  centuries, 
it  seemed  to  him,  her  foot  tapped  on  that  wetted  ledge. 

Presently  her  lashes  lifted.  "I  suppose  it  would 
be  lacking  in  reverence  to  keep  a  clergyman  waiting 
longer  than  was  absolutely  necessary?"  she  hazarded. 


A   BROWN   WOMAN 


"A  enticed  age  called  for  symmetry,  and  exquisite  finish 
had  to  be  studied  as  much  as  nobility  of  thought.  .  .  . 
POPE  aimed  to  take  first  place  as  a  writer  of  polished 
verse.  Any  knowledge  he  gained  of  the  world,  or  any 
suggestion  that  came  to  him  from  his  intercourse  with 
society,  was  utilized  to  accomplish  his  main  purpose.  To 
put  his  thoughts  into  choice  language  was  not  enough. 
Each  idea  had  to  be  put  in  its  neatest  and  most  epigram- 
matic form" 


Why  did  I  write  ?  what  sin  to  me  unknown 

Dipt  me  in  ink,  my  parents',  or  my  own  ? 

As  yet  a  child,  nor  yet  a  fool  to  fame, 

I  lisped  in  numbers,  for  the  numbers  came. 

The  muse  but  served  to  ease  some  friend,  not  wife, 

To  help  me  through  this  long  disease,  my  life. 
****** 

Who  shames  a  scribbler?  break  one  cobweb  through, 
He  spins  the  slight,  self-pleasing  thread  anew ; 
Destroy  his  fib  or  sophistry  in  vain, 
The  creature's  at  his  foolish  work  again, 
Throned  in  the  centre  of  his  thin  designs, 
Proud  of  a  vast  extent  of  flimsy  lines ! 

ALEXANDER  POPE.    Epistle 
to  Dr.  Arbuthnot. 


A  BROWN  WOMAN 


BUT  I  must  be  hurrying  home  now,"  the  girl 
said,  "for  it  is  high  time  I  were  back  in  the 
hayfields." 

"Fair  shepherdess,"  he  implored,  "for  heaven's 
sake,  let  us  not  cut  short  the  pastorelle  thus  abruptly." 

"And  what  manner  of  beast  may  that  be,  pray?" 

"  Tis  a  conventional  form  of  verse,  my  dear,  which 
we  at  present  strikingly  illustrate.  The  plan  of  a 
pastorelle  is  simplicity's  self:  a  gentleman,  which  I 
may  fairly  claim  to  be,  in  some  fair  rural  scene — such 
as  this — comes  suddenly  upon  a  rustic  maiden  of  sur- 
passing beauty.  He  naturally  falls  in  love  with  her, 
and  they  say  all  manner  of  fine  things  to  each  other." 

She  considered  him  for  a  while  before  speaking. 
It  thrilled  him  to  see  the  odd  tenderness  that  was  in 
her  face.  "You  always  think  of  saying  and  writing 
fine  things,  do  you  not,  sir?" 

"My  dear,"  he  answered,  gravely,  "I  believe  that 
I  was  undoubtedly  guilty  of  such  folly  until  you  came. 
I  wish  I  could  make  you  understand  how  your  com- 
ing has  changed  everything." 

149 


THE     C  E  RTAI  N      HOUR 


"You  can  tell  me  some  other  time,"  the  girl  gaily 
declared,  and  was  about  to  leave  him. 

His  hand  detained  her,  very  gently.  "Faith,  but  I 
fear  not,  for  already  my  old  hallucinations  seem  to 
me  incredible.  Why,  yesterday  I  thought  it  the  most 
desirable  of  human  lots  to  be  a  great  poet" — the  gen- 
tleman laughed  in  self -mockery.  "I  positively  did.  I 
labored  every  day  toward  becoming  one.  I  lived 
among  books,  esteemed  that  I  was  doing  something  of 
genuine  importance  as  I  gravely  tinkered  with  allitera- 
tion and  metaphor  and  antithesis  and  judicious  para- 
phrases of  the  ancients.  I  put  up  with  life  solely  be- 
cause it  afforded  material  for  versification ;  and,  in 
reality,  believed  the  destruction  of  Troy  was  provi- 
dentially ordained  lest  Homer  lack  subject  matter  for 
an  epic.  And  as  for  loving,  I  thought  people  fell  in 
love  in  order  to  exchange  witty  rhymes." 

His  hand  detained  her,  very  gently.  .  .  .  Indeed,  it 
seemed  to  him  he  could  never  tire  of  noting  her  ex- 
cellencies. Perhaps  it  was  that  splendid  light  poise 
of  her  head  he  chiefly  loved;  he  thought  so  at  least, 
just  now.  Or  was  it  the  wonder  of  her  walk,  which 
made  all  other  women  he  had  ever  known  appear 
to  mince  and  hobble,  like  rusty  toys?  Something  there 
was  assuredly  about  this  slim  brown  girl  which  re- 
called an  untamed  and  harmless  woodland  creature; 
and  it  was  that,  he  knew,  which  most  poignantly 
moved  him,  even  though  he  could  not  name  it.  Per- 
haps it  was  her  bright  kind-  eyes,  which  seemed  to 
mirror  the  tranquillity  of  forests.  .  .  . 


A     BROWN      WOMAN 


"You  gentry  are  always  talking  of  love,"  she  mar- 
veled. 

"Oh,"  he  said,  with  acerbity,  "oh,  I  don't  doubt  that 
any  number  of  beef-gorging  squires  and  leering,  long- 
legged  Oxford  dandies "  He  broke  off  here,  and 

laughed  contemptuously.  "Well,  you  are  beautiful, 
and  they  have  eyes  as  keen  as  mine.  And  I  do  not 
blame  you,  my  dear,  for  believing  my  designs  to  be 
no  more  commendable  than  theirs — no,  not  at  all." 

But  his  mood  was  spoiled,  and  his  tetchy  vanity 
hurt,  by  the  thought  of  stout  well-set  fellows  having 
wooed  this  girl;  and  he  permitted  her  to  go  without 
protest. 

Yet  he  s~t  alone  for  a  while  upon  the  fallen  tree- 
trunk,  humming  a  contented  little  tune.  Never  in 
his  life  had  he  been  happier.  He  did  not  venture  to 
suppose  that  any  creature  so  adorable  could  love  such 
a  sickly  hunchback,  such  a  gargoyle  of  a  man,  as  he 
v/as ;  but  that  Sarah  was  fond  of  him,  he  knew.  There 
would  be  no  trouble  in  arranging  with  her  father  for 
their  marriage,  most  certainly;  and  he  meant  to  at- 
tend to  that  matter  this  very  morning,  and  within  ten 
minutes.  So  Mr.  Alexander  Pope  was  meanwhile  ar- 
ranging in  his  mind  a  suitable  wording  for  his  declara- 
tion of  marital  aspirations. 

Thus  John  Gay  found  him  presently  and  roused 
him  from  phrase-spinning.  "And  what  shall  we  do 
this  morning,  Alexander?"  Gay  was  always  demand- 
ing, like  a  spoiled  child,  to  be  amused. 

Pope  told  him  what  his  own  plans  were,  speaking 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


quite  simply,  but  with  his  countenance  radiant.  Gay 
took  off  his  hat  and  wiped  his  forehead,  for  the  day 
was  warm.  He  did  not  say  anything  at  all. 

"Well ?"  Mr.  Pope  asked,  after  a  pause. 

Mr.  Gay  was  dubious.  "I  had  never  thought  that 
you  would  marry,"  he  said.  "And — why,  hang  it, 
Alexander!  to  grow  enamored  of  a  milkmaid  is  well 
enough  for  the  hero  of  a  poem,  but  in  a  poet  it  hints 
at  injudicious  composition. " 

Mr.  Pope  gesticulated  with  thin  hands  and  seemed 
upon  the  verge  of  eloquence.  Then  he  spoke  unan- 
swerably. "But  I  love  her,"  he  said. 

John  Gay's  reply  was  a  subdued  whistle.  He,  in 
common  with  the  other  guests  of  Lord  Har court,  at 
Nuneham  Courtney,  had  wondered  what  would  be  the 
outcome  of  Mr.  Alexander  Pope's  intimacy  with 
Sarah  Drew.  A  month  earlier  the  poet  had  sprained 
his  ankle  upon  Amshot  Heath,  and  this  young  woman 
had  found  him  lying  there,  entirely  helpless,  as  she 
returned  from  her  evening  milking.  Being  hale  of 
person,  she  had  managed  to  get  the  little  hunchback 
to  her  home  unaided.  And  since  then  Pope  had  often 
been  seen  with  her. 

This  much  was  common  knowledge.  That  Mr. 
Pope  proposed  to  marry  the  heroine  of  his  misadven- 
ture afforded  a  fair  mark  for  raillery,  no  doubt,  but 
Gay,  in  common  with  the  run  of  educated  England  in 
1718,  did  not  aspire  to  be  facetious  at  Pope's  expense. 
The  luxury  was  too  costly.  Offend  the  dwarf  in 
any  fashion,  and  were  you  the  proudest  duke  at  Court 
152 


A     BROWN      WOMAN 


or  the  most  inconsiderable  rhymester  in  Petticoat  Lane, 
it  made  no  difference ;  there  was  no  crime  too  heinous 
for  "the  great  Mr.  Pope's"  next  verses  to  charge  you 
with,  and,  worst  of  all,  there  was  no  misdoing  so  out 
of  character  that  his  adroit  malignancy  could  not 
make  it  seem  plausible. 

Now,  after  another  pause,  Pope  said,  "I  must  be 
going  now.  Will  you  not  wish  me  luck?" 

"Why,  Alexander — why,  hang  it!"  was  Mr.  Gay's 
observation,  "I  believe  that  you  are  human  after  all, 
and  not  just  a  book  in  breeches." 

He  thereby  voiced  a  commentary  patently  uncalled- 
for,  as  Mr.  Pope  afterward  reflected.  Mr.  Pope  was 
then  treading  toward  the  home  of  old  Frederick 
Drew.  It  was  a  gray  morning  in  late  July. 

"I  love  her,"  Pope  had  said.  The  fact  was  unde- 
niable ;  yet  an  expression  of  it  necessarily  halts.  Pope 
knew,  as  every  man  must  do  who  dares  conserve  his 
energies  to  annotate  the  drama  of  life  rather  than 
play  a  part  in  it,  the  nature  of  that  loneliness  which 
this  conservation  breeds.  Such  persons  may  hope  to 
win  a  posthumous  esteem  in  the  library,  but  it  is  at 
the  bleak  cost  of  making  life  a  wistful  transaction  with 
foreigners.  In  such  enforced  aloofness  Sarah  Drew 
had  come  to  him — strong,  beautiful,  young,  good  and 
vital,  all  that  he  was  not — and  had  serenely  befriended 
"the  great  Mr.  Pope,"  whom  she  viewed  as  a  queer 
decrepit  little  gentleman  of  whom  within  a  week  she 
was  unfeignedly  fond. 

153 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


"I  love  her/1  Pope  had  said.  Eh,  yes,  no  doubt; 
and  what,  he  fiercely  demanded  of  himself,  was  he — a 
crippled  scribbler,  a  bungling  artisan  of  phrases — that 
he  should  dare  to  love  this  splendid  and  deep-bosomed 
goddess  ?  Something  of  youth  awoke,  possessing  him 
— something  of  that  high  ardor  which,  as  he  cloudily 
remembered  now,  had  once  controlled  a  boy  who 
dreamed  in  Windsor  Forest  and  with  the  lightest  of 
hearts  planned  to  achieve  the  impossible.  For  what 
is  more  difficult  of  attainment  than  to  achieve  the  per- 
fected phrase,  so  worded  that  to  alter  a  syllable  of  its 
wording  would  be  little  short  of  sacrilege? 

"What  whimwhams !"  decreed  the  great  Mr.  Pope, 
aloud.  "Verse-making  is  at  best  only  the  affair  of  idle 
men  who  write  in  their  closets  and  of  idle  men  who 
read  there.  And  as  for  him  who  polishes  phrases, 
whatever  be  his  fate  in  poetry,  it  is  ten  to  one  but  he 
must  give  up  all  the  reasonable  aims  of  life  for  it." 

No,  he  would  have  no  more  of  loneliness.  Hence- 
forward Alexander  Pope  would  be  human — like  the 
others.  To  write  perfectly  was  much;  but  it  was  not 
everything.  Living  was  capable  of  furnishing  even 
more  than  the  raw  material  of  a  couplet.  It  might, 
for  instance,  yield  content. 

For  instance,  if  you  loved,  and  married,  and  begot, 
and  died,  with  the  seriousness  of  a  person  who  believes 
he  is  performing  an  action  of  real  importance,  and 
conceded  that  the  perfection  of  any  art,  whether  it 
be  that  of  verse-making  or  of  rope-dancing,  is  at  best 
a  by-product  of  life's  conduct;  at  worst,  you  probably 
154 


A     BROWN     WOMAN 


would  not  be  lonely.  No;  you  would  be  at  one  with 
all  other  fat-witted  people,  and  there  was  no  greater 
blessing  conceivable. 

Pope  muttered,  and  produced  his  notebook,  and 
wrote  tentatively. 

Wrote  Mr.  Pope : 

The  bliss  of  man  (could  pride  that  blessing  find) 
Is  not  to  act  or  think  beyond  mankind ; 
No  powers  of  body  or  of  soul  to  share 
But  what  his  nature  and  his  state  can  bear. 

"His  state!"  yes,  undeniably,  two  sibilants  collided 
here.  "His  wit?" — no,  that  would  be  flat-footed 
awkwardness  in  the  management  of  your  vowel- 
sounds;  the  lengthened  "a"  was  almost  requisite.  .  .  . 
Pope  was  fretting  over  the  imbroglio  when  he  absent- 
mindedly  glanced  up  to  perceive  that  his  Sarah,  not 
irrevocably  offended,  was  being  embraced  by  a  cer- 
tain John  Hughes — who  was  a  stalwart,  florid  per- 
sonable individual,  no  doubt,  but,  after  all,  only  an 
unlettered  farmer. 

The  dwarf  gave  a  hard,  wringing  motion  of  his 
hands.  The  diamond — Lord  Bolingbroke's  gift — 
which  ornamented  Pope's  left  hand  cut  into  the  flesh 
of  his  little  finger,  so  cruel  was  the  gesture;  and  this 
little  finger  was  bleeding  as  Pope  tripped  forward, 
smiling.  A  gentleman  does  not  incommode  the  public 
by  obtruding  the  ugliness  of  a  personal  wound. 

"Do  I  intrude?"  he  queried.     "Ah,  well!     I  also 

155 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


have  dwelt  in  Arcadia."  Tt  was  bitter  to  comprehend 
that  he  had  never  done  so. 

The  lovers  were  visibly  annoyed ;  yet,  if  an  interrup- 
tion of  their  pleasant  commerce  was  decreed  to  be,  it 
could  not  possibly  have  sprung,  as  they  soon  found, 
from  a  more  sympathetic  source. 

These  were  not  subtle  persons.  Pope  had  the  truth 
from  them  within  ten  minutes.  They  loved  each 
other;  but  John  Hughes  was  penniless,  and  old  Fred- 
erick Drew  was,  in  consequence,  obdurate. 

"And,  besides,  he  thinks  you  mean  to  marry  her!" 
said  John  Hughes. 

"My  dear  man,  he  pardonably  forgets  that  the  ut- 
most reach  of  my  designs  in  common  reason  would 
bt  to  have  her  as  my  kept  mistress  for  a  month  or 
two,"  drawled  Mr.  Pope.  "As  concerns  yourself,  my 
good  fellow,  the  case  is  somewhat  different.  Why, 
it  is  a  veritable  romance — an  affair  of  Daphne  and 
Corydon — although,  to  be  unpardonably  candid,  the 
plot  of  your  romance,  my  young  Arcadians,  is  not 
the  most  original  conceivable.  I  think  that  the 
denouement  need  not  baffle  our  imaginations." 

The  dwarf  went  toward  Sarah  Drew.  The  chary 
sunlight  had  found  the  gold  in  her  hair,  and  its 
glint  was  brightly  visible  to  him.  "My  dear — "  he 
said.  His  thin  long  fingers  touched  her  capable  hand. 
It  was  a  sort  of  caress — half-timid.  "My  dear,  I 
owe  my  life  to  you.  My  body  is  at  most  a  flimsy 
abortion  such  as  a  night's  exposure  would  have  made 
more  tranquil  than  it  is  just  now.  Yes,  it  was  you 

156 


A     BROWN     WOMAN 


who  found  a  caricature  of  the  sort  of  man  that  Mr. 
Hughes  here  is,  disabled,  helpless,  and — for  reasons 
which  doubtless  seemed  to  you  sufficient — contrived 
that  this  unsightly  parody  continue  in  existence.  I  am 
not  lovable,  my  dear.  I  am  only  a  hunchback,  as  you 
can  see.  My  aspirations  and  my  sickly  imaginings 
merit  only  the  derision  of  a  candid  clean-souled  being 
such  as  you  are."  His  finger-tips  touched  the  back 
of  her  hand  again.  "I  think  there  was  never  a  maker 
of  enduring  verse  who  did  not  at  one  period  or  an- 
other long  to  exchange  an  assured  immortality  for 
a  sturdier  pair  of  shoulders.  I  think — I  think  that 
1  am  prone  to  speak  at  random,"  Pope  said,  with  his 
half-drowsy  smile.  "Yet,  none  the  less,  an  honest 
man,  as  our  kinsmen  in  Adam  average,  is  bound  to 
pay  his  equitable  debts." 

She  said,  "I  do  not  understand." 
"I  have  perpetrated  certain  jingles,"  Pope  returned. 
"I  had  not  comprehended  until  to-day  they  are  the 
only  children  I  shall  leave  behind  me.  Eh,  and  what 
would  you  make  of  them,  my  dear,  could  ingenuity 
contrive  a  torture  dire  enough  to  force  you  into  read- 
ing them!  .  .  .  Misguided  people  have  paid  me  for 
contriving  these  jingles.  So  that  I  have  money  enough 
to  buy  you  from  your  father  just  as  I  would  purchase 
one  of  his  heifers.  Yes,  at  the  very  least  I  have 
money,  and  I  have  earned  it.  I  will  send  your  big- 
thewed  adorer — I  believe  that  Hughes  is  the  name? — 
£500  of  it  this  afternoon.  That  sum,  I  gather,  will 

157 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


be  sufficient  to  remove  your  father's  objection  to  your 
marriage  with  Mr.  Hughes." 

Pope  could  not  but  admire  himself  tremendously. 
Moreover,  in  such  matters  no  woman  is  blind.  Tears 
came  into  Sarah's  huge  brown  eyes.  This  tender- 
hearted girl  was  not  thinking  of  John  Hughes  now. 
Pope  noted  the  fact  with  the  pettiest  exultation.  "Oh, 
you — you  are  good."  Sarah  Drew  spoke  as  with  dif- 
ficulty. 

"No  adjective,  my  dear,  was  ever  applied  with  less 
discrimination.  It  is  merely  that  you  have  rendered 
no  inconsiderable  service  to  posterity,  and  merit  a 
reward." 

"Oh,  and  inaeed,  indeed,  I  was  always  fond  of 
you "  The  girl  sobbed  this. 

She  would  have  added  more,  no  doubt,  since  com- 
passion is  garrulous,  had  not  Pope's  scratched  hand 
dismissed  a  display  of  emotion  as  not  entirely  in  con- 
sonance with  the  rules  of  the  game. 

"My  dear,  therein  you  have  signally  honored  me. 
There  remains  only  to  offer  you  my  appreciation  of 
your  benevolence  toward  a  sickly  monster,  and  to 
entreat  for  my  late  intrusion — however  unintentional 
— that  forgiveness  which  you  would  not  deny,  I  think, 
to  any  other  impertinent  insect." 

"Oh,  but  we  have  no  words  to  thank  you,  sir !" 

Thus  Hughes  began. 

"Then  don't  attempt  it,  my  good  fellow.  For 
phrase-spinning,  as  I  can  assure  you,  is  the  most 
profitless  of  all  pursuits."  Whereupon  Pope  bowed 

158 


A      BROWN      WOMAN 


low,  wheeled,  walked  away.  Yes,  he  was  wounded 
past  sufferance;  it  seemed  to  him  he  must  die  of  it. 
Life  was  a  farce,  and  Destiny  an  overseer  who  hic- 
coughed mandates.  Well,  all  that  even  Destiny  could 
find  to  gloat  over,  he  reflected,  was  the  tranquil  figure 
of  a  smallish  gentleman  switching  at  the  grass-blades 
with  his  cane  as  he  sauntered  under  darkening  skies. 
For  a  storm  was  coming  on,  and  the  first  big  drops 
of  it  were  splattering  the  terrace  when  Mr.  Pope  en- 
tered Lord  Harcourt's  mansion. 

Pope  went  straight  to  his  own  rooms.  As  he  came 
in  there  was  a  vivid  flash  of  lightning,  followed  in- 
stantaneously by  a  crashing,  splitting  noise,  like  that 
of  universes  ripped  asunder.  He  did  not  honor  the 
high  uproar  with  attention.  This  dwarf  was  not 
afraid  of  anything  except  the  commission  of  an  er- 
ror in  taste. 

Then,  too,  there  were  letters  for  him,  laid  ready  on 
the  writing-table.  Nothing  of  much  importance  he 
found  there. — Here,  though,  was  a  rather  diverting 
letter  from  Eustace  Budgell,  that  poor  fool,  abjectly 
thanking  Mr.  Pope  for  his  advice  concerning  how 
best  to  answer  the  atrocious  calumnies  on  Budgell 
then  appearing  in  The  Grub-Street  Journal, — and  re- 
posing, drolly  enough,  next  the  proof-sheets  of  an 
anonymous  letter  Pope  had  prepared  for  the  forth- 
coming issue  of  that  publication,  wherein  he  spright- 
lily  told  how  Budgell  had  poisoned  Dr.  Tindal,  after 
forging  his  will.  For  even  if  Budgell  had  not  in 

159 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


point  of  fact  been  guilty  of  these  particular  peccadil- 
loes, he  had  quite  certainly  committed  the  crime  of 
speaking  lightly  of  Mr.  Pope,  as  "a  little  envious  ani- 
mal/' some  seven  years  ago;  and  it  was  for  this  grave 
indiscretion  that  Pope  was  dexterously  goading  the 
man  into  insanity,  and  eventually  drove  him  to  sui- 
cide. .  .  ..« 

The  storm  made  the  room  dark  and  reading  diffi- 
cult. Still,  this  was  an  even  more  amusing  letter, 
from  the  all-powerful  Duchess  of  Marlborough.  In 
as  civil  terms  as  her  sick  rage  could  muster,  the  fright- 
ened woman  offered  Mr.  Pope  £1,000  to  suppress  his 
verbal  portrait  of  her,  in  the  character  of  Atossa,  from 
his  Moral  Essays;  and  Pope  straightway  decided  to 
accept  the  bribe,  and  afterward  to  print  his  verses 
unchanged.  For  the  hag,  as  he  reflected,  very  greatly 
needed  to  be  taught  that  in  this  world  there  was  at 
least  one  person  who  did  not  quail  before  her  tan- 
trums. There  would  be,  moreover,  even  an  elemen- 
tary justice  in  thus  robbing  her  who  had  robbed  Eng- 
land at  large.  And,  besides,  her  name  was  Sarah.  .  .  . 

Pope  lighted  four  candles  and  set  them  before  the 
long  French  mirror.  He  stood  appraising  his  many 
curious  deformities  while  the  storm  raged.  He  stood 
sidelong,  peering  over  his  left  shoulder,  in  order  to 
see  the  outline  of  his  crooked  back.  Nowhere  in 
England,  he  reflected,  was  there  a  person  more  pitiable 
and  more  repellent  outwardly. 

"And,  oh,  it  would  be  droll,"  Pope  said,  aloud,  "if 
our  exteriors  were  ever  altogether  parodies.  But  time 
1 60 


A     BROWN     WOMAN 


keeps  a  diary  in  our  faces,  and  writes  a  monstrously 
plain  hand.  Now,  if  you  take  the  first  letter  of  Mr. 
Alexander  Pope's  Christian  name,  and  the  first  and 
last  letters  of  his  surname,  you  have  A.  P.  E.,"  Pope 
quoted,  genially.  "I  begin  to  think  that  Dennis  was 
right.  What  conceivable  woman  would  not  prefer  a 
well-set  man  of  five-and-twenty  to  such  a  withered 
abortion?  And  what  does  it  matter,  after  all,  that 
a  hunchback  has  dared  to  desire  a  shapely  brown- 
haired  woman?" 

Pope  came  more  near  to  the  mirror.  "Make  answer, 
you  who  have  dared  to  imagine  that  a  goddess  was 
ever  drawn  to  descend  into  womanhood  except  by 
kisses,  brawn  and  a  clean  heart." 

Another  peal  of  thunder  bellowed.  The  storm  was 
growing  furious.  "Yet  I  have  had  a  marvelous  dream. 
Now  I  awaken.  I  must  go  on  in  the  old  round.  As 
long  as  my  wits  preserve  their  agility  I  must  be  able 
to  amuse,  to  flatter  and,  at  need,  to  intimidate  the 
patrons  of  that  ape  in  the  mirror,  so  that  they  will 
not  dare  refuse  me  the  market-value  of  my  antics. 
And  Sarah  Drew  has  declined  an  alliance  such  as 
this  in  favor  of  a  fresh-colored  complexion  and  a  pair 
of  straight  shoulders!" 

Pope  thought  a  while.  "And  a  clean  heart!  She 
bargained  royally,  giving  love  for  nothing  less  than 
love.  The  man  is  rustic,  illiterate;  he  never  heard  of 
Aristotle,  he  would  be  at  a  loss  to  distinguish  be- 
tween a  trochee  and  a  Titian,  and  if  you  mentioned 
Boileau  to  him  would  probably  imagine  you  were 

161 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


talking  of  cookery.  But  he  loves  her.  He  would  for- 
feit eternity  to  save  her  a  toothache.  And,  chief  of 
all,  she  can  make  this  robust  baby  happy,  and  she 
alone  can  make  him  happy.  And  so,  she  gives,  gives 
royally — she  gives,  God  bless  her!" 

Rain,  sullen  rain,  was  battering  the  window.  "And 
you — you  hunchback  in  the  mirror,  you  maker  of 
neat  rhymes — pray,  what  had  you  to  offer?  A  coach- 
and-six,  of  course,  and  pin-money  and  furbelows  and 
in  the  end  a  mausoleum  with  unimpeachable  Latin  on 
it!  And — pate  sur  pate — an  unswerving  devotion 
which  she  would  share  on  almost  equal  terms  with 
the  Collected  Works  of  Alexander  Pope.  And  so  she 
chose— chose  brawn  and  a  clean  heart." 

The  dwarf  turned,  staggered,  fell  upon  his  bed. 
"God,  make  a  man  of  me,  make  me  a  good  brave  man. 
I  loved  her — oh,  such  as  I  am,  You  know  that  I  loved 
her!  You  know  that  I  desire  her  happiness  above 
all  things.  Ah,  no,  for  You  know  that  I  do  not 
at  bottom.  I  want  to  hurt,  to  wound  all  living  crea- 
tures, because  they  know  how  to  be  happy,  and  I  do 
not  know  how.  Ah,  God,  and  why  did  You  decree 
that  I  should  never  be  an  obtuse  and  comely  animal 
such  as  this  John  Hughes  is?  I  am  so  tired  of  being 
'the  great  Mr.  Pope,'  and  I  want  only  the  common 
joys  of  life." 

The  hunchback  wept.  It  would  be  too  curious  to 
anatomize  the  writhings  of  his  proud  little  spirit. 

Now  some  one  tapped  upon  the  door.    It  was  John 
162 


A     BROWN      WOMAN 


Gay.  He  was  bidden  to  enter,  and,  complying,  found 
Mr.  Pope  yawning  over  the  latest  of  Tonson's  publi- 
cations. 

Gay's  face  was  singularly  portentous.  "My  friend," 
Gay  blurted  out,  "I  bring  news  which  will  horrify  you. 
Believe  me,  I  would  never  have  mustered  the  pluck 
to  bring  it  did  I  not  love  you.  I  cannot  let  you  hear 
it  first  in  public  and  unprepared,  as,  otherwise,  you 
would  have  to  do." 

"Do  I  not  know  you  have  the  kindest  heart  in  all 
the  world?  Why,  so  outrageous  are  your  amiable 
defects  that  they  would  be  the  public  derision  of  your 
enemies  if  you  had  any,"  Pope  returned. 

The  other  poet  evinced  an  awkward  commingle- 
ment  of  consternation  and  pity.  "It  appears  that 
when  this  storm  arose — why,  Mistress  Drew  was 
with  a  young  man  of  the  neighborhood — a  John 

Hewet "  Gay  was  speaking  with  unaccustomed 

rapidity. 

"Hughes,  I  think,"  Pope  interrupted,  equably. 

"Perhaps — I  am  not  sure.  They  sought  shelter 
under  a  haycock.  You  will  remember  that  first  crash 
of  thunder,  as  if  the  heavens  were  in  demolishment ? 
My  friend,  the  reapers  who  had  been  laboring  in  the 
fields — who  had  been  driven  to  such  protection  as 
the  trees  or  hedges  afforded " 

"Get  on !"  a  shrill  voice  cried ;  "for  God's  love,  man, 
get  on !"  Mr.  Pope  had  risen.  This  pallid  shaken 
wisp  was  not  in  appearance  the  great  Mr.  Pope  whose 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


ingenuity  had  enabled  Homeric  warriors  to  excel  in 
the  genteel. 

"They  first  saw  a  little  smoke.  .  .  .  They  found 
this  Hughes  with  one  arm  about  the  neck  of  Mistress 
Drew,  and  the  other  held  over  her  face,  as  if  to  screen 
her,  from  the  lightning.  They  were  both" — and  here 
Gay  hesitated.  'They  were  both  dead,"  he  amended. 

Pope  turned  abruptly.  Nakedness  is  of  necessity 
uncouth,  he  held,  whether  it  be  the  body  or  the  soul 
that  is  unveiled.  Mr.  Pope  went  toward  a  window 
which  he  opened,  and  he  stood  thus  looking  out  for 
a  brief  while. 

"So  she  is  dead,"  he  said.  "It  is  very  strange.  So 
many  rare  felicities  of  curve  and  color,  so  much  of 
purity  and  kindliness  and  valor  and  mirth,  ex- 
tinguished as  one  snuffs  a  candle!  Well!  I  am  sorry 
she  is  dead,  for  the  child  had  a  talent  for  living  and 
got  such  joy  out  of  it.  ...  Hers  was  a  lovely  happy 
life,  but  it  was  sterile.  Already  nothing  remains  of 
her  but  dead  flesh  which  must  be  huddled  out  of  sight. 
I  shall  not  perish  thus  entirely,  I  believe.  Men  will 
remember  me.  Truly  a  mighty  foundation  for  pride ! 
when  the  utmost  I  can  hope  for  is  but  to  be  read  in 
one  island,  and  to  be  thrown  aside  at  the  end  of  one 
age.  Indeed,  I  am  not  even  sure  of  that  much.  I 
print,  and  print,  and  print.  And  when  I  collect  my 
verses  into  books,  I  am  altogether  uncertain  whether 
to  look  upon  myself  as  a  man  building  a  monument,  or 
burying  the  dead.  It  sometimes  seems  to  me  that 
each  publication  is  but  a  solemn  funeral  of  many 

164 


A     BROWN     WOMAN 


wasted  years.  For  I  have  given  all  to  the  verse- 
making.  Granted  that  the  sacrifice  avails  to  rescue 
my  name  from  oblivion,  what  will  it  profit  me  when 
I  am  dead  and  care  no  more  for  men's  opinions  than 
Sarah  Drew  cares  now  for  what  I  say  of  her?  But 
then  she  never  cared.  She  loved  John  Hughes.  And 
she  was  right." 

He  made  an  end  of  speaking,  still  peering  out  of  the 
window  with  considerate  narrowed  eyes. 

The  storm  was  over.  In  the  beech-tree  opposite 
a  wren  was  raising  optimistic  outcry.  The  sun  had 
won  his  way  through  a  black-bellied  shred  of  cloud; 
upon  the  terrace  below,  a  dripping  Venus  and  a  Per- 
seus were  glistening  as  with  white  fire.  Past  these, 
drenched  gardens,  the  natural  wildness  of  which  was 
judiciously  restrained  with  walks,  ponds,  grottoes, 
statuary  and  other  rural  elegancies,  displayed  the  in- 
termingled brilliancies  of  diamonds  and  emeralds,  and 
glittered  as  with  pearls  and  rubies  where  tempest-bat- 
tered roses  were  reviving  in  assertiveness. 

"I  think  the  storm  is  over,"  Mr.  Pope  remarked. 
"It  is  strange  how  violent  are  these  convulsions  of 
nature.  .  .  .  But  nature  is  a  treacherous  blowsy  jade, 
who  respects  nobody.  A  gentleman  can  but  shrug 
under  her  onslaughts,  and  henceforward  civilly  avoid 
them.  It  is  a  consolation  to  reflect  that  they  pass 
quickly." 

He  turned  as  in  defiance.  "Yes,  yes !  It  hurts.  But 
I  envy  them.  Yes,  even  I,  that  ugly  spiteful  hornet 
of  a  man!  'the  great  Mr.  Pope/  who  will  be  dining 

165 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


with  the  proudest  people  in  England  within  the  hour 
and  gloating  over  their  deference !  For  they  presume 
to  make  a  little  free  with  God  occasionally,  John,  but 
never  with  me.  And  /  envy  these  dead  young  fools. 
,  .  .  You  see,  they  loved  each  other,  John.  I 
left  them,  not  an  hour  ago,  the  happiest  of  liv- 
ing creatures.  I  looked  back  once.  I  pretended 
to  have  dropped  my  handkerchief.  I  imagine  they 
were  talking  of  their  wedding-clothes,  for  this  broad- 
shouldered  Hughes  was  matching  poppies  and  field- 
flowers  to  her  complexion.  It  was  a  scene  out  of 
Theocritus.  I  think  Heaven  was  so  well  pleased  by 
the  tableau  that  Heaven  hastily  resumed  possession 
of  its  enactors  in  order  to  prevent  any  after-happen- 
ings from  belittling  that  perfect  instant." 

"Egad,  and  matrimony  might  easily  have  proved 
an  anti-climax,"  Gay  considered. 

"Yes;  oh,  it  is  only  Love  that  is  blind,  and  not 
the  lover  necessarily.  I  know.  I  suppose  I  always 
knew  at  the  bottom  of  my  heart.  This  hamadryad 
was  destined  in  the  outcome  to  dwindle  into  a  village 
housewife,  she  would  have  taken  a  lively  interest  in 
the  number  of  eggs  the  hens  were  laying,  she  would 
even  have  assured  her  children,  precisely  in  the  way 
her  father  spoke  of  John  Hughes,  that  young  people 
ordinarily  have  foolish  fancies  which  their  rational 
elders  agree  to  disregard.  But  as  it  is,  no  Eastern 
queen — not  Semele  herself— left  earth  more  nobly — " 

Pope  broke  off  short.  He  produced  his  notebook, 
which  he  never  went  without,  and  wrote  frowningly, 
166 


A     BROWN     WOMAN 


with  many  erasures.     "H'm,  yes,"  he  said;  and  he 
read  aloud: 

"When  Eastern  lovers  feed  the  funeral  fire, 
On  the  same  pile  the  faithful  fair  expire ; 
Here  pitying  heaven  that  virtue  mutual  found, 
And  blasted  both  that  it  might  neither  wound. 
Hearts  so  sincere  the  Almighty  saw  well  pleased, 
Sent  His  own  lightning  and  the  victims  seized." 

Then  Pope  made  a  grimace.  "No;  the  analogy  is 
trim  enough,  but  the  lines  lack  fervor.  It  is  de- 
plorable how  much  easier  it  is  to  express  any  emotion 
other  than  that  of  which  one  is  actually  conscious." 
Pope  had  torn  the  paper  half -through  before  he  re- 
flected that  it  would  help  to  fill  a  printed  page.  He 
put  it  in  his  pocket.  "But,  come  now,  I  am  writing 
to  Lady  Mary  this  afternoon.  You  know  how  she 
loves  oddities.  Between  us — with  prose  as  the  me- 
dium, of  course,  since  verse  should,  after  all,  confine 
itself  to  the  commemoration  of  heroes  and  royal  per- 
sons— I  believe  we  might  make  of  this  occurrence  a 
neat  and  moving  pastorelle — I  should  say,  pastoral, 
of  course,  but  my  wits  are  wool-gathering." 

Mr.  Gay  had  the  kindest  heart  in  the  universe.  Yet 
he,  also,  had  dreamed  of  the  perfected  phrase,  so 
worded  that  to  alter  a  syllable  of  its  wording  would 
be  little  short  of  sacrilege.  Eyes  kindling,  he  took  up 
a  pen.  "Yes,  yes,  I  understand.  Egad,  it  is  an 
admirable  subject.  But,  then,  I  don't  believe  I  ever 

saw  these  lovers ?" 

167 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


"John  was  a  well-set  man  of  about  five-and-twenty," 
replied  Mr.  Pope;  "and  Sarah  was  a  brown  woman 
of  eighteen  years,  three  months  and  fourteen  days." 

Then  these  two  dipped  their  pens  and  set  about  a 
moving  composition,  which  has  to-day  its  proper  rat- 
ing among  Mr.  Pope's  Complete  Works. 


168 


PRO  HONORIA 


"But  that  sense  of  negation,  of  theoretic  insecurity f 
which  was  in  the  air,  conspiring  with  what  was  of  like 
tendency  in  himself,  made  of  Lord  UFFORD  a  central 
type  of  disillusion.  .  .  .  He  had  been  amiable  because 
the  general  betise  of  humanity  did  not  in  his  opinion 
greatly  matter,  after  all;  and  in  reading  these  'SATIRES'  it 
is  well-nigh  painful  to  witness  the  blind  and  naked  forces 
of  nature  and  circumstance  surprising  him  in  the  uncon- 
trollable movements  of  his  own  so  carefully  guarded 
heart." 


Why  is  a  handsome  wife  adored 
By  every  coxcomb  but  her  lord? 

From  yonder  puppet-man  inquire 
Who  wisely  hides  his  wood  and  wire ; 
Shows  Sheba's  queen  completely  dress'd 
And  Solomon  in  royal  vest; 

But  view  them  litter'd  on  the  floor, 

Or  strung  on  pegs  behind  the  door, 

Punch  is  exactly  of  a  piece 

With  Lorrain's  duke,  and  prince  of  Greece. 

HORACE  CALVERLEY.    Petition 
to  the  Duke  of  Ormskirk. 


PRO  HQNORIA 


IN  the  early  winter  of  1761  the  Earl  of  Bute,  then 
Secretary  of  State,  gave  vent  to  an  outburst  of 
unaccustomed  profanity.  Mr.  Robert  Calverley, 
who  represented  England  at  the  Court  of  St.  Peters- 
burg, had  resigned  his  office  without  prelude  or  any 
word  of  explanation.  This  infuriated  Bute,  since  his 
pet  scheme  was  to  make  peace  with  Russia  and  thereby 
end  the  Continental  War.  Now  all  was  to  do  again ; 
the  minister  raged,  shrugged,  furnished  a  new  emis- 
sary with  credentials,  and  marked  Calver ley's  name 
for  punishment. 

As  much,  indeed,  was  written  to  Calverley  by  Lord 
Ufford,  the  poet,  diarist,  musician  and  virtuoso: 

Our  Scottish  Mortimer,  it  appears,  is  unwilling  to  have 
the  map  of  Europe  altered  because  Mr.  Robert  Calverley 
has  taken  a  whim  to  go  into  Italy.  He  is  angrier  than 
I  have  ever  known  him  to  be.  He  swears  that  with  a 
pen's  flourish  you  have  imperiled  the  well-being  of  Eng- 
land, and  raves  in  the  same  breath  of  the  preferment  he 
had  designed  for  you.  Beware  of  him.  For  my  own 

171 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


part,  I  shrug  and  acquiesce,  because  I  am  familiar  with 
your  pranks.  I  merely  venture  to  counsel  that  you  do 
not  crown  the  Pelion  of  abuse,  which  our  statesmen  are 
heaping  upon  you,  with  the  Ossa  of  physical  as  well  as 
political  suicide.  Hasten  on  your  Italian  jaunt,  for  Um- 
fraville,  who  is  now  with  me  at  Carberry  Hill,  has  pub- 
licly declared  that  if  you  dare  re-appear  in  England  he 
will  have  you  horsewhipped  by  his  footmen.  In  conse- 
quence, I  would  most  earnestly  advise 

Mr.  Calverley  read  no  further,  but  came  straight- 
way into  England.  He  had  not  been  in  England  since 
his  elopement,  three  years  before  that  spring,  with  the 
Marquis  of  Umfraville's  betrothed,  Lord  Radnor's 
daughter,  whom  Calverley  had  married  at  Calais.  Mr. 
Calverley  and  his  wife  were  presently  at  Carberry 
Hill,  Lord  Ufford's  home,  where,  arriving  about 
moon-rise,  they  found  a  ball  in  progress. 

Their  advent  caused  a  momentary  check  to  merri- 
ment. The  fiddlers  ceased,  because  Lord  Ufford  had 
signaled  them.  The  fine  guests  paused  in  their  stately 
dance.  Lord  Ufford,  in  a  richly  figured  suit,  came 
hastily  to  Lady  Honoria  Calverley,  his  high  heels  tap- 
ping audibly  upon  the  floor,  and  with  gallantry  lifted 
her  hand  toward  his  lips.  Her  husband  he  embraced, 
and  the  two  men  kissed  each  other,  as  was  the  custom 
of  the  age.  Chatter  and  laughter  rose  on  every  side 
as  pert  and  merry  as  the  noises  of  a  brook  in  spring- 
time. 

"I  fear  that  as  Lord  Umfraville's  host,"  young 
Calverley  at  once  began,  "you  cannot  with  decorum 
172 


PRO     HONORIA 


convey  to  the  ignoramus  my  opinion  as  to  his  ability 
to  conjugate  the  verb  to  dare." 

"Why,  but  no!  you  naturally  demand  a  duel,"  the 
poet-earl  returned.  "It  is  very  like  you.  I  lament 
your  decision,  but  I  will  attempt  to  arrange  the 
meeting  for  to-morrow  morning." 

Lord  Ufford  smiled  and  nodded  to  the  musicians. 
He  finished  the  dance  to  admiration,  as  this  lean  dan- 
dified young  man  did  everything — "assiduous  to  win 
each  fool's  applause,"  as  his  own  verses  scornfully 
phrase  it.  Then  Ufford  went  about  his  errand  of 
de«th  and  conversed  for  a  long  while  with  Umfra- 
ville. 

Afterward  Lord  Ufford  beckoned  to  Calverley,  who 
shrugged  and  returned  Mr.  Erwyn's  snuff-box,  wh'ich 
Calverley  had  been  admiring.  He  followed  the  earl 
into  a  side-room  opening  upon  the  Venetian  Chamber 
wherein  the  fete  was.  Ufford  closed  the  door.  You 
saw  that  he  had  put  away  the  exterior  of  mirth  that 
hospitality  demanded  of  him,  and  perturbation  showed 
in  the  lean  countenance  which  was  by  ordinary  so 
proud  and  so  amiably  peevish. 

"Robin,  you  have  performed  many  mad  actions  in 
your  life!"  he  said;  "but  this  return  into  the  three 
kingdoms  out-Herods  all!  Did  I  not  warn  you. 
against  Umfraville!" 

"Why,  certainly  you  did,"  returned  Mr.  Calverley. 
"You  informed  me — which  was  your  duty  as  a  friend 
— of  this  curmudgeon's  boast  that  he  would  have  me 
horsewhipped  if  I  dared  venture  into  England.  You 

173 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


will  readily  conceive  that  any  gentleman  of  self-respect 
cannot  permit  such  farcical  utterances  to  be  delivered 
without  appending  a  gladiatorial  epilogue.  Well! 
what  are  the  conditions  of  this  duel?" 

"Oh,  fool  that  I  have  been !"  cried  Ufford,  who  was 
enabled  now  by  virtue  of  their  seclusion  to  manifest 
his  emotion.  "I,  who  have  known  you  all  your 
life !" 

He  paced  the  room.  Pleading  music  tinged  the 
silence  almost  insensibly. 

"Heh,  Fate  has  an  imperial  taste  in  humor!"  the 
poet  said.  "Robin,  we  have  been  more  than  brothers. 
And  it  is  I,  I,  of  all  persons  living,  who  have  drawn 
you  into  this  imbroglio!" 

"My  danger  is  not  very  apparent  as  yet,"  said  Cal- 
verley,  "if  Umfraville  controls  his  sword  no  better 
than  his  tongue." 

My  lord  of  Ufford  went  on :  "There  is  no  question 
of  a  duel.  It  is  as  well  to  spare  you  what  Lord  Um- 
fraville replied  to  my  challenge.  Let  it  suffice  that 
we  do  not  get  sugar  from  the  snake.  Besides,  the  man 
has  his  grievance.  Robin,  have  you  forgot  that  neck- 
lace you  and  Pevensey  took  from  Umfraville  some 
three  years  ago — before  you  went  into  Russia?" 

Calverley  laughed.  The  question  recalled  an  old 
hot-headed  time  when,  exalted  to  a  frolicsome  zone 
by  the  discovery  of  Lady  Honor  ia  Pom  fret's  love  for 
him,  he  planned  the  famous  jest  which  he  and  the 
mad  Earl  of  Pevensey  perpetrated  upon  Umfraville. 
This  masquerade  won  quick  applause.  Persons  of 
174 


PRO     HONORIA 


ton  guffawed  like  ploughboys  over  the  discomfiture 
of  an  old  hunks  thus  divertingly  stripped  of  his  bride, 
all  his  betrothal  gifts,  and  of  the  very  clothes  he  wore. 
An  anonymous  scribbler  had  detected  in  the  occurrence 
a  denouement  suited  to  the  stage  and  had  constructed 
a  comedy  around  it,  which,  when  produced  by  the 
Duke's  company,  had  won  acclaim  from  hilarious 
auditors. 

So  Calverley  laughed  heartily.  "Gad,  what  a  jest 
that  was !  This  Umf raville  comes  to  marry  Honoria. 
And  highwaymen  attack  his  coach!  I  would  give 
£50  to  have  witnessed  this  usurer's  arrival  at  Denton 
Honor  in  his  underclothes!  and  to  have  seen  his 
monkey-like  grimaces  when  he  learned  that  Honoria 
and  I  were  already  across  the  Channel !" 

"You  robbed  him,  though " 

"Indeed,  for  beginners  at  peculation  we  did  not 
do  so  badly.  We  robbed  him  and  his  valet  of  every- 
thing in  the  coach,  including  their  breeches.  You  do 
not  mean  that  Pevensey  has  detained  the  poor  man's 
wedding  trousers?  If  so,  it  is  unfortunate,  because 
this  loud-mouthed  miser  has  need  of  them  in  order 
that  he  may  be  handsomely  interred." 

"Lord  Umfraville's  wedding-suit  was  stuffed  with 
straw,  hung  on  a  pole  and  paraded  through  London 
by  Pevensey,  March,  Selwyn  and  some  dozen  other 
madcaps,  while  six  musicians  marched  before  them. 
The  clothes  were  thus  conveyed  to  Umfraville's  house. 
I  think  none  of  us  would  have  relished  a  joke  like  that 
were  he  the  butt  of  it." 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Now  the  poet's  lean  countenance  was  turned  upon 
young  Calverley,  and  as  always,  Ufford  evoked  that 
nobility  in  Calverley  which  follies  veiled  but  had  not 
ever  killed. 

"Egad,"  said  Robert  Calverley;  "I  grant  you  that 
all  th!  was  infamously  done.  I  never  authorized  it. 
I  shall  kill  Pevensey.  Indeed,  I  will  do  more,"  he 
added,  with  a  flourish.  "For  I  will  apologize  to 
Umfraville,  and  this  very  night." 

But  Ufford  was  not  disposed  to  levity.  "Let  us 
come  to  the  point,"  he  sadly  said.  "Pevensey  re- 
turned everything  except  the  necklace  which  Umfra- 
ville had  intended  to  be  his  bridal  gift.  Pevensey  con- 
ceded the  jest,  in  fine;  and  denied  all  knowledge  of 
any  necklace. " 

It  was  an  age  of  accommodating  morality.  Cal- 
verley sketched  a  whistle,  and  showed  no  other  trace 
of  astonishment. 

"I  see.  The  fool  confided  in  the  spendthrift.  My 
dear,  I  understand.  In  nature  Pevensey  gave  the  gems 
to  some  nymph  of  Sadler's  Wells  or  Covent  Garden. 
For  I  was  out  of  England.  And  so  he  capped  his 
knavery  with  insolence.  It  is  an  additional  reason 
why  Pevensey  should  not  live  to  scratch  a  gray  head. 
It  is,  however,  an  affront  to  me  that  Umfraville  should 
have  believed  him.  I  doubt  if  I  may  overlook  that, 
Horace?" 

"I  question  if  he  did  believe.  But,  then,  what  help 
had  he?  This  Pevensey  is  an  earl.  His  person  as  a 
peer  of  England  is  inviolable.  No  statute  touches  him 


PRO     HONORIA 


directly,  because  he  may  not  be  confined  except  by 
the  King's  personal  order.  And  it  is  tolerably  no- 
torious that  Pevensey  is  in  Lord  Bute's  pay,  and  that 
our  Scottish  Mortimer,  to  do  him  justice,  does  not 
permit  his  spies  to  be  injured." 

Now  Mr.  Calverley  took  snuff.  The  music  with- 
out was  now  more  audible,  and  it  had  shifted  to  a 
merrier  tune. 

"I  think  I  comprehend.  Pevensey  and  I — whatever 
were  our  motives — have  committed  a  robbery.  Peven- 
sey, as  the  law  runs,  is  safe.  I,  too,  was  safe  as  long 
as  I  kept  out  of  England.  As  matters  stand,  Lord 
Umfraville  intends  to  press  a  charge  of  theft  against 
me.  And  I  am  in  disgrace  with  Bute,  who  is  quite 
content  to  beat  offenders  with  a  crooked  stick.  This 
confluence  of  two-penny  accidents  is  annoying." 

"It  is  worse  than  you  know,"  my  lord  of  Ufford 
returned.  He  opened  the  door  which  led  to  the  Vene- 
tian Chamber.  A  surge  of  music,  of  laughter,  and  of 
many  lights  invaded  the  room  wherein  they  stood. 
"D'ye  see  those  persons,  just  past  Umfraville,  so 
inadequately  disguised  as  gentlemen?  They  are  from 
Bow  Street.  Lord  Umfraville  intends  to  apprehend 
you  here  to-night." 

"He  has  an  eye  for  the  picturesque,"  drawled  Cal- 
verley. "My  tragedy,  to  do  him  justice,  could  not 
be  staged  more  strikingly.  Those  additional  alcoves 
have  improved  the  room  beyond  belief.  I  must  apolo- 
gize for  not  having  rendered  my  compliments  a  trifle 
earlier." 

177 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Internally  he  outstormed  Termagaunt.  It  was  in- 
famous enough,  in  all  conscience,  to  be  arrested,  but 
to  have  half  the  world  of  fashion  as  witnessess  of 
one's  discomfiture  was  perfectly  intolerable.  He  rec- 
ognized the  excellent  chance  he  had  of  being  the  most 
prominent  figure  upon  some  scaffold  before  long,  but 
that  contingency  did  not  greatly  trouble  Calverley,  as 
set  against  the  certainty  of  being  made  ridiculous 
within  the  next  five  minutes. 

In  consequence,  he  frowned  and  rearranged  the 
fall  of  his  shirt-frill  a  whit  the  more  becomingly. 

"Yes,  for  hate  sharpens  every  faculty,"  the  earl 
went  on.  "Even  Umfraville  understands  that  you  do 
not  fear  death.  So  he  means  to  have  you  tried  like 
any  common  thief  while  all  your  quondam  friends  sit 
and  snigger.  And  you  will  be  convicted " 

"Why,  necessarily,  since  I  am  not  as  Pevensey.  Of 
course,  I  must  confess  I  took  the  necklace." 

"And  Pevensey  must  stick  to  the  tale  that  he  knows 
nothing  of  any  necklace.  Dear  Robin,  this  means 
Newgate.  Accident  deals  very  hardly  with  us,  Robin, 
for  this  means  Tyburn  Hill." 

"Yes ;  I  suppose  it  means  my  death,"  young  Calver- 
ley assented.  "Well!  I  have  feasted  with  the  world 
and  found  its  viands  excellent.  The  banquet  ended,  I 
must  not  grumble  with  my  host  because  I  find  his 
choice  of  cordials  not  altogether  to  my  liking."  Thus 
speaking,  he  was  aware  of  nothing  save  that  the  fid- 
dlers were  now  about  an  air  to  which  he  had  often 
danced  with  his  dear  wife. 


PRO     HONORIA 


"I  have  a  trick  yet  left  to  save  our  honor, " 

Lord  Ufford  turned  to  a  table  where  wine  and  glasses 
were  set  ready.  "I  propose  a  toast.  Let  us  drink — 
for  the  last  time — to  the  honor  of  the  Calverleys." 

"It  is  an  invitation  I  may  not  decorously  refuse. 
And  yet — it  may  be  that  I  do  not  understand  you?" 

My  lord  of  Ufford  poured  wine  into  two  glasses. 
These  glasses  were  from  among  the  curios  he  collected 
so  industriously — tall,  fragile  things,  of  seventeenth 
century  make,  very  intricately  cut  with  roses  and 
thistles,  and  in  the  bottom  of  each  glass  a  three-penny 
piece  was  embedded.  Lord  Ufford  took  a  tiny  vial 
from  his  pocket  and  emptied  its  contents 'into  the  glass 
which  stood  the  nearer  to  Mr.  Calverley. 

"This  is  Florence  water.  We  dabblers  in  science 
are  experimenting  with  it  at  Gresham  College.  A 
taste  of  it  means  death — a  painless,  quick  and  hon- 
orable death.  You  will  have  died  of  a  heart  seizure. 
Come,  Robin,  let  us  drink  to  the  honor  of  the  Cal- 
verleys." 

The  poet-earl  paused  for  a  little  while.  Now  he 
was  like  some  seer  of  supernal  things. 

"For  look  you,"  said  Lord  Ufford,  "we  come  of 
honorable  blood.  We  two  are  gentlemen.  We  have 
our  code,  and  we  may  not  infringe  upon  it.  Our  code 
does  not  invariably  square  with  reason,  and  I  doubt 
if  Scripture  would  afford  a  dependable  foundation. 
So  be  it !  We  have  our  code  and  we  may  not  infringe 
upon  it.  There  have  been  many  Calverleys  who  did 
not  fear  their  God,  but  there  was  never  any  one  of 

179 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


them  who  did  not  fear  dishonor.  I  am  the  head  of 
no  less  proud  a  house.  As  such,  I  counsel  you  to 
drink  and  die  within  the  moment.  It  is  not  possible 
a  Calverley  survive  dishonor.  Oh,  God!"  the  poet 
cried,  and  his  voice  broke ;  "and  what  is  honor  to  this 
clamor  within  me!  Robin,  I  love  you  better  than  I 
do  this  talk  of  honor!  For,  Robin,  I  have  loved  you 
long!  so  long  that  what  we  do  to-night  will  always 
make  life  hideous  to  me!" 

Calverley  was  not  unmoved,  but  he  replied  in  the 
tone  of  daily  intercourse.  "It  is  undoubtedly  absurd 
to  perish  here,  like  some  unreasonable  adversary  of 
the  Borgias.  Your  device  is  rather  outrageously  hor- 
rific, Horace,  like  a  bit  out  of  your  own  romance — yes, 
egad,  it  is  pre-eminently  worthy  of  the  author  of 
The  Vassal  of  Spalatro.  Still  I  can  understand  that 
it  is  preferable  to  having  fat  and  greasy  fellows  squan- 
der a  shilling  for  the  privilege  of  perching  upon  a  box 
while  I  am  being  hanged.  And  I  think  I  shall  accept 
your  toast " 

"You  will  be  avenged,"  Ufford  said,  simply. 

"My  dear,  as  if  I  ever  questioned  that!  Of  course, 
you  will  kill  Pevensey  first  and  Umfraville  afterward. 
Only  I  want  to  live.  For  I  was  meant  to  play  a  joyous 
role  whole-heartedly  in  the  big  comedy  of  life.  So 
many  people  find  the  world  a  dreary  residence,"  Mr. 
Calverley  sighed,  "that  it  is  really  a  pity  some  one 
of  these  long-faced  stolidities  cannot  die  now  instead 
of  me.  For  I  have  found  life  wonderful  throughout." 

The  brows  of  UfTord  knit.  "Would  you  consent 
180 


PRO     HONORIA 


to  live  as  a  transported  felon?  I  have  much  money. 
I  need  not  tell  you  the  last  penny  is  at  your  disposal. 
It  might  be  possible  to  bribe.  Indeed,  Lord  Bute  is 
all-powerful  to-day  and  he  would  perhaps  procure  a 
pardon  for  you  at  my  entreaty.  He  is  so  kind  as  to 
admire  my  scribblings.  .  .  Or  you  might  live  among 
your  fellow-convicts  somewhere  over  sea  for  a  while 
longer.  I  had  not  thought  that  such  would  be  your 

choice- "  Here  UfTord  shrugged,  restrained  by 

courtesy.  "Besides,  Lord  Bute  is  greatly  angered  with 
you,  because  you  have  endangered  his  Russian  alliance. 
However,  if  you  wish  it,  I  will  try " 

"Oh,  for  that  matter,  I  do  not  much  fear  Lord 
Bute,  because  I  bring  him  the  most  welcome  news  he 
has  had  in  many  a  day.  I  may  tell  you  since  it  will 
be  public  to-morrow.  The  Tzaritza  Elizabeth,  our 
implacable  enemy,  died  very  suddenly  three  weeks  ago. 
Peter  of  Holstein-Gottrop  reigns  to-day  in  Russia, 
and  I  have  made  terms  with  him.  I  came  to  tell  Lord 
Bute  the  Cossack  troops  have  been  recalled  from 
Prussia.  The  war  is  at  an  end."  Young  Calverley 
meditated  and  gave  his  customary  boyish  smile.  "Yes, 
I  discharged  my  Russian  mission  after  all — even  after 
I  had  formally  relinquished  it — because  I  was  so  op- 
portunely aided  by  the  accident  of  the  Tzaritza's 
death.  And  Bute  cares  only  for  results.  So  I  would 
explain  to  him  that  I  resigned  my  mission  simply  be- 
cause in  Russia  my  wife  could  not  have  lived  out 
another  year— — " 

The  earl  exclaimed,  "Then  Honoria  is  ill!"  Mr. 

181 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


Calverley  did  not  attend,  but  stood  looking  out  into 
the  Venetian  Chamber. 

"See,  Horace,  she  is  dancing  with  Anchester  while 
I  wait  here  so  near  to  death.  She  dances  well.  But 
Honoria  does  everything  adorably.  I  cannot  tell  you 
— oh,  not  even  you! — how  happy  these  three  years 
have  been  with  her.  Eh,  well !  the  gods  are  jealous  of 
such  happiness.  You  will  remember  how  her  mother 
died?  It  appears  that  Honoria  is  threatened  with  a 
slow  consumption,  and  a  death  such  as  her  mother's 
was.  She  does  not  know.  There  was  no  need  to 
frighten  her.  For  although  the  rigors  of  another 
Russian  winter,  as  all  physicians  tell  me,  would  in- 
evitably prove  fatal  to  her,  there  is  no  reason  why 
my  dearest  dear  should  not  continue  to  laugh— just 
as  she  always  does — for  a  long,  bright  and  happy 
while  in  some  warm  climate  such  as  Italy's.  In  na- 
ture I  resigned  my  appointment.  I  did  not  consider 
England,  or  my  own  trivial  future,  or  anything  of  that 
sort.  I  considered  only  Honoria." 

He  gazed  for  many  moments  upon  the  woman 
whom  he  loved.  His  speech  took  on  an  odd  sim- 
plicity. 

"Oh,  yes,  I  think  that  in  the  end  Bute  would  pro- 
cure a  pardon  for  me.  But  not  even  Bute  can  over- 
ride the  laws  of  England.  I  would  have  to  be  tried 
first,  and  have  ballads  made  concerning  me,  and  be 
condemned,  and  so  on.  That  would  detain  Honoria 
in  England,  because  she  is  sufficiently  misguided  to 
love  me.  I  could  never  persuade  her  to  leave  me  with 
182 


PRO     HONORIA 


my  life  in  peril.  She  could  not  possibly  survive  an 
English  winter."  Here  Calverley  evinced  unbridled 
mirth.  "The  irony  of  events  is  magnificent.  There 
is  probably  no  question  of  hanging  or  even  of  trans- 
portation. It  is  merely  certain  that  if  I  venture  from 
this  room  I  bring  about  Honoria's  death  as  incon- 
testably  as  if  I  strangled  her  with  these  two  hands. 
So  I  choose  my  own  death  in  preference.  It  will 

grieve  Honoria "  His  voice  was  not  completely 

steady.  "But  she  is  young.  She  will  forget  me,  for 
she  forgets  easily,  and  she  will  be  happy.  I  look  to 
you  to  see — even  before  you  have  killed  Pevensey — 
that  Honoria  goes  into  Italy.  For  she  admires  and 
loves  you,  almost  as  much  as  I  do,  Horace,  and  she 
will  readily  be  guided  by  you — — " 

He  cried  my  lord  of  Ufford's  given  name  some  two 
or  three  times,  for  young  Calverley  had  turned,  and 
he  had  seen  Ufford's  face. 

The  earl  moistened  his  lips.  "You  are  a  fool,"  he 
said,  with  a  thin  voice.  "Why  do  you  trouble  me  by 
being  better  than  I  ?  Or  do  you  only  posture  for  my 
benefit?  Do  you  deal  honestly  with  me,  Robert  Cal- 
verley?— then  swear  it "  He  laughed  here,  very 

horribly.  "Ah,  no,  when  did  you  ever  lie!  You  do 
not  lie — not  you!" 

He  waited  for  a  while.  "But  I  am  otherwise.  I 
dare  to  lie  when  the  occasion  promises.  I  have  desired 
Honoria  since  the  first  moment  wherein  I  saw  her. 
I  may  tell  you  now.  I  think  that  you  do  not  remem- 

1*3 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


her.    We  gathered  cherries.    I  ate  two  of  them  which 
had  just  lain  upon  her  knee " 

His  hands  had  clenched  each  other,  and  his  lips 
were  drawn  balck  so  that  you  saw  his  exquisite  teeth, 
which  were  ground  together.  He  stood  thus  for  a 
little,  silent. 

Then  Ufford  began  again:  "I  planned  all  this.  I 
plotted  this  with  Umfraville.  I  wrote  you  such  a  let- 
ter as  would  inevitably  draw  you  to  your  death.  I 
wished  your  death.  For  Honoria  would  then  be 
freed  of  you.  I  would  condole  with  her.  She  is 
readily  comforted,  impatient  of  sorrow,  incapable  of 
it,  I  dare  say.  She  would  have  married  me.  .  .  . 
Why  must  I  tell  you  this?  Oh,  I  am  Fate's  buffoon! 
For  I  have  won,  I  have  won!  and  there  is  that  in 
me  which  will  not  accept  the  stake  I  cheated  for." 

"And  you,"  said  Calverley — "this  thing  is  you!" 

"A  helpless  reptile  now,"  said  Ufford.  "I  have  not 
the  power  to  check  Lord  Umfraville  in  his  vengeance. 
You  must  be  publicly  disgraced,  and  must,  I  think, 
be  hanged  even  now  when  it  will  not  benefit  me  at  all. 
It  may  be  I  shall  weep  for  that  some  day!  Or  else 
Honoria  must  die,  because  an  archangel  could  not 
persuade  her  to  desert  you  in  your  peril.  For  she 
loves  you — loves  you  to  the  full  extent  of  her  merry 
and  shallow  nature.  Oh,  I  know  that,  as  you  will 
never  know  it.  I  shall  have  killed  Honoria!  I  shall 
not  weep  when  Honoria  dies.  Harkee,  Robin!  they 
are  dancing  yonder.  It  is  odd  to  think  that  I  shall 
never  dance  again." 
184 


PRO     HONORIA 


"Horace — !"  the  younger  man  said,  like  a  person 
of  two  minds.  He  seemed  to  choke.  He  gave  a  fran- 
tic gesture.  "Oh,  I  have  loved  you.  I  have  loved 
nothing  as  I  have  loved  you." 

"And  yet  you  chatter  of  your  passion  for  Honoria!" 
Lord  Ufford  returned,  with  a  snarl.  "I  ask  what 
proof  is  there  of  this? — Why,  that  you  have  surren- 
dered your  well-being  in  this  world  through  love  of 
her.  But  I  gave  what  is  vital.  I  was  an  honorable 
gentleman  without  any  act  in  all  my  life  for  which 
I  had  need  to  blush.  I  loved  you  as  I  loved  no  other 
being  in  the  universe."  He  spread  his  hands,  which 
now  twitched  horribly.  "You  will  never  understand. 
It  does  not  matter.  I  desired  Honoria.  To-day 
through  my  desire  of  her,  I  am  that  monstrous  thing 
which  you  alone  know  me  to  be.  I  think  I  gave  up 
much.  Pro  honoria!"  he  chuckled.  "The  Latin  halts, 
but,  none  the  less,  the  jest  is  excellent." 

"You  have  given  more  than  I  would  dare  to  give," 
said  Calverley.  He  shuddered. 

"And  to  no  end!"  cried  Ufford.  "Ah,  fate,  the 
devil  and  that  code  I  mocked  are  all  in  league  to  cheat 
me!" 

Said  Calverley:  "The  man  whom  I  loved  most  is 
dead.  Oh,  had  the  world  been  searched  between  the 
sunrise  and  the  sunsetting  there  had  not  been  found 
his  equal.  And  now,  poor  fool,  I  know  that  there 
was  never  any  man  like  this!" 

"Nay,  there  was  such  a  man,"  the  poet  said,  "in 
an  old  time  which  I  almost  forget.  To-day  he  is 

185 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


quite  dead.  There  is  only  a  poor  wretch  who  has 
been  faithless  in  all  things,  who  has  not  even  served 
the  devil  faithfully." 

"Why,  then,  you  lackey  with  a  lackey's  soul,  at- 
tend to  what  I  say.  Can  you  make  any  terms  with 
Umfraville?" 

"I  can  do  nothing/'  Ufford  replied.  "You  have 
robbed  him — as  me — of  what  he  most  desired.  You 
have  made  him  the  laughing-stock  of  England.  He 
does  not  pardon  any  more  than  I  would  pardon." 

"And  as  God  lives  and  reigns,  I  do  not  greatly 
blame  him,"  said  young  Calverley.  "This  man  at  least 
was  wronged.  Concerning  you  I  do  not  speak,  because 
of  a  false  dream  I  had  once  very  long  ago.  Yet  Um- 
fraville was  treated  infamously.  I  dare  concede  what 
I  could  not  permit  another  man  to  say  and  live,  now 
that  I  drink  a  toast  which  I  must  drink  alone.  For  I 
drink  to  the  honor  of  the  Calverleys.  I  have  not  ever 
lied  to  any  person  in  this  world,  and  so  I  may  not 
drink  with  you." 

"Oh,  but  you  drink  because  you  know  your  death 
to  be  the  one  event  which  can  insure  her  happiness," 
cried  Ufford.  "We  are  not  much  unlike.  And  I  dare 
say  it  is  only  an  imaginary  Honoria  we  love,  after 
all.  Yet,  look,  my  f ellow-Ixion !  for  to  the  eye  at 
least  is  she  not  perfect?" 

The  two  men  gazed  for  a  long  while.    Amid  that 

coterie  of  exquisites,   wherein  allusion  to  whatever 

might  be  ugly  in  the  world  was  tacitly  allowed  to  be 

unmentionable,  Lady  Honoria  glitteringly  went  about 

1 86 


PRO     HONORIA 


the  moment's  mirthful  business  with  lovely  ardor.  You 
saw  now  unmistakably  that  "Light  Queen  of  Elfdom, 
dead  Titania's  heir"  of  whom  Ufford  writes  in  the 
fourth  Satire.  Honor  ia's  prettiness,  rouged,  frail, 
and  modishly  enhanced,  allured  the  eye  from  all  less 
elfin  brilliancies;  and  as  she  laughed  among  so  many 
other  relishers  of  life  her  charms  became  the  more 
instant,  just  as  a  painting  quickens  in  every  tint  when 
set  in  an  appropriate  frame. 

"There  is  no  other  way,"  her  husband  said.  He 
drank  and  toasted  what  was  dearest  in  the  world, 
smiling  to  think  how  death  came  to  him  in  that  wine's 
familiar  taste.  "I  drink  to  the  most  lovely  of  created 
ladies!  and  to  her  happiness!" 

He  snapped  the  stem  of  the  glass  and  tossed  it  joy- 
ously aside. 

"Assuredly,  there  is  no  other  way,"  said  Ufford. 
"And  armored  by  that  knowledge,  even  I  may  drink 
as  honorable  people  do.  Pro  honoria!"  Then  this 
man  also  broke  his  emptied  glass. 

"How  long  have  I  to  live?"  said  Calverley,  and 
took  snuff. 

"Why,  thirty  years,  I  think,  unless  you  duel  too 
immoderately,"  replied  Lord  Ufford, — "since  while 
you  looked  at  Honoria  I  changed  our  glasses.  No! 
no!  a  thing  done  has  an  end.  Besides,  it  is  not  un- 
worthy of  me.  So  go  boldly  to  the  Earl  of  Bute  and 
tell  him  all.  You  are  my  cousin  and  my  successor. 
Yes,  very  soon  you,  too,  will  be  a  peer  of  England 
and  as  safe  from  molestation  as  is  Lord  Pevensey. 

' 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


I  am  the  first  to  tender  my  congratulations.  Now  I 
make  certain  that  they  are  not  premature." 

The  poet  laughed  at  this  moment  as  a  man  may 
laugh  in  hell.  He  reeled.  His  lean  face  momentarily 
contorted,  and  afterward  the  poet  died. 

"I  am  Lord  Ufford,"  said  Calverley  aloud.  "The 

person  of  a  peer  is  inviolable "  He  presently 

looked  downward  from  rapt  gazing  at  his  wife. 

Fresh  from  this  horrible  half-hour,  he  faced  a  fu- 
ture so  alluring  as  by  its  beauty  to  intimidate  him. 
Youth,  love,  long  years  of  happiness,  and  (by  this 
capricious  turn)  now  even  opulence,  were  the  in- 
gredients of  a  captivating  vista.  And  yet  he  needs 
must  pause  a  while  to  think  of  the  dear  comrade  he 
had  lost — of  that  loved  boy,  his  pattern  in  the  time  of 
their  common  youth  fulness  which  gleamed  in  memory 
as  bright  and  misty  as  a  legend,  and  of  the  perfect 
chevalier  who  had  been  like  a  touchstone  to  Robert  Cal- 
verley a  bare  half -hour  ago.  He  knelt,  touched  lightly 
the  fallen  jaw,  and  lightly  kissed  the  cheek  of  this 
poor  wreckage;  and  was  aware  that  the  caress  was 
given  with  more  tenderness  than  Robert  Calverley  had 
shown  in  the  same  act  a  bare  half -hour  ago. 

Meanwhile  the  music  of  a  country  dance  urged 
the  new  Earl  of  Ufford  to  come  and  frolic  where 
every  one  was  laughing;  and  to  partake  with  gusto 
of  the  benefits  which  chance  had  provided;  and  to  be 
forthwith  as  merry  as  was  decorous  in  a  peer  of 
England. 

188 


THE  IRRESISTIBLE  OGLE 


"But  after  SHERIDAN  had  risen  to  a  commanding  po- 
sition in  the  gay  life  of  London,  he  rather  disliked  to 
be  known  as  a  playwright  or  a  poet,  and  preferred  to  be 
regarded  as  a  statesman  and  a  man  of  fashion  who  'set 
the  pace'  in  all  pastimes  of  the  opulent  and  idle.  Yet, 
whatever  he  really  thought  of  his  own  writings,  and 
whether  or  not  he  did  them,  as  Stevenson  used  to  say, 
'just  for  fun,'  the  fact  remains  that  he  was  easily  the 
most  distinguished  and  brilliant  dramatist  of  an  age  which 
produced  in  SHERIDAN'S  solemn  vagaries  one  of  its  most 
characteristic  products" 


Look  on  this  form, — where  humor,  quaint  and  sly, 
Dimples  the  cheek,  and  points  the  beaming  eye ; 
Where  gay  invention  seems  to  boast  its  wiles 
In  amorous  hint,  and  half -triumphant  smiles. 

Look  on  her  well — does  she  seem  f orm'd  to  teach  ? 
Should  you  expect  to  hear  this  lady  preach  ? 
Is  gray  experience  suited  to  her  youth  ? 
Do  solemn  sentiments  become  that  mouth? 

Bid  her  be  grave,  those  lips  should  rebel  prove 
To  every  theme  that  slanders  mirth  or  love. 

RICHARD  BRINSLEY  SHERIDAN.  Second 
Prologue  to  The  Rivals. 


THE  IRRESISTIBLE  OGLE 


THE  devotion  of  Mr.  Sheridan  to  the  Dean  of 
Winchester's    daughter,    Miss    Esther    Jane 
Ogle — or  "the  irresistible  Ogle/'  as  she  was 
toasted  at  the  Kit-cat — was  now  a  circumstance  to 
be  assumed  in  the  polite  world  of  London.    As  a  re- 
sult, when  the  parliamentarian  followed  her  into  Scot- 
land, in  the  spring  of  1795,  people  only  shrugged. 

"Because  it  proves  that  misery  loves  company," 
was  Mr.  Fox's  observation  at  Wattier's,  hard  upon 
two  in  the  morning.  "Poor  Sherry,  as  an  inconsolable 
widower,  must  naturally  have  some  one  to  share  his 
grief.  He  perfectly  comprehends  that  no  one  will  la- 
ment the  death  of  his  wife  more  fervently  than  her 
successor." 

In  London  Mr.  Fox  thus  worded  his  interpretation 
of  the  matter;  and  spoke,  oddly  enough,  at  the  very 
moment  that  in  Edinburgh  Mr.  Sheridan  returned  to 
his  lodgings  in  Abercromby  Race,  deep  in  the  rem- 
iniscences of  a  fortunate  evening  at  cards.  In  conse- 
quence, Mr.  Sheridan  entered  the  room  so  quietly  that 
the  young  man  who  was  employed  in  turning  over  the 

191 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


contents  of  the  top  bureau-drawer  was  taken  unpre- 
pared. 

But  in  the  marauder's  nature,  as  far  as  resolution 
went,  was  little  lacking.  "Silence!"  he  ordered,  and 
with  the  mandate  a  pistol  was  leveled  upon  the  rep- 
resentative for  the  borough  of  Stafford.  "One  cry 
for  help,  and  you  perish  like  a  dog.  I  warn  you  that 
I  am  a  desperate  man." 

"Now,  even  at  a  hazard  of  discourtesy,  I  must  make 
bold  to  question  your  statement,"  said  Mr.  Sheridan, 
"although,  indeed,  it  is  not  so  much  the  recklessness 
as  the  masculinity  which  I  dare  call  into  dispute." 

He  continued,  in  his  best  parliamentary  manner, 
a  happy  blending  of  reproach,  omniscience  and  pardon. 
"Only  two  months  ago,"  said  Mr.  Sheridan,  "I  was 
so  fortunate  as  to  encounter  a  lady  who,  alike  through 
the  attractions  of  her  person  and  the  sprightliness  of 
her  conversation,  convinced  me  I  was  on  the  road  to 
fall  in  love  after  the  high  fashion  of  a  popular  ro- 
mance. I  accordingly  make  her  a  declaration.  I  am 
rejected.  I  besiege  her  with  the  customary  artillery  of 
sonnets,  bouquets,  serenades,  bonbons,  theater-tickets 
and  threats  of  suicide.  In  fine,  I  contract  the  habit 
of  proposing  to  Miss  Ogle  on  every  Wednesday;  and 
so  strong  is  my  infatuation  that  I  follow  her  as  far 
into  the  north  as  Edinburgh  in  order  to  secure  my 
eleventh  rejection  at  half-past  ten  last  evening." 

"I  fail  to  understand,"  remarked  the  burglar,  "how 
all  this  prolix  account  of  your  amours  can  possibly 


concern  me." 


192 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGLE 


"You  are  at  least  somewhat  involved  in  the  deplor- 
able climax,"  Mr.  Sheridan  returned.  "For  behold! 
at  two  in  the  morning  I  discover  the  object  of  my 
adoration  and  the  daughter  of  an  estimable  prelate, 
most  calumniously  clad  and  busily  employed  in  rum- 
pling my  supply  of  cravats.  If  ever  any  lover  was 
thrust  into  a  more  ambiguous  position,  madam,  his- 
torians have  touched  on  his  dilemma  with  marked 
reticence." 

He  saw — and  he  admired — the  flush  which  mounted 
to  his  visitor's  brow.  And  then,  "I  must  concede  that 
appearances  are  against  me,  Mr.  Sheridan,"  the  beau- 
tiful intruder  said.  "And  I  hasten  to  protest  that 
my  presence  in  your  apartments  at  this  hour  is 
prompted  by  no  unworthy  motive.  I  merely  came  to 
steal  the  famous  diamond  which  you  brought  from 
London — the  Honor  of  Eiran." 

"Incomparable  Esther  Jane,"  ran  Mr.  Sheridan's 
answer,  "that  stone  is  now  part  of  a  brooch  which 
was  this  afternoon  returned  to  my  cousin's,  the  Earl 
of  Eiran's,  hunting-lodge  near  Melrose.  He  intends 
the  gem  which  you  are  vainly  seeking  among  my 
haberdashery  to  be  the  adornment  of  his  promised 
bride  in  the  ensumg  June.  I  confess  to  no  overwhelm- 
ing admiration  as  concerns  this  raucous  if  meritorious 
young  person ;  and  will  even  concede  that  the  thought 
of  her  becoming  my  kinswoman  rouses  in  me  an  in- 
evitable distaste,  no  less  attributable  to  the  discord  of 
her  features  than  to  the  sovrce  of  her  eligibility  to 
disfigure  the  peerage — that  being  her  father's  lucra- 

193 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


tive  transactions  in  Pork,  which  I  find  indigestible  in 
any  form." 

"A  truce  to  paltering!"  Miss  Ogle  cried.  'That 
jewel  was  stolen  from  the  temple  at  Moorshedabad, 
by  the  Earl  of  Eiran's  grandfather,  during  the  con- 
fusion necessarily  attendant  on  the  glorious  battle  of 
Plassy."  She  laid  down  the  pistol,  and  resumed  in 
milder  tones:  "From  an  age-long  existence  as  the 
left  eye  of  Gnnesh  it  was  thus  converted  into  the  loot 
of  an  invader.  To  restore  this  diamond  to  its  lawful, 
although  no  doubt  polygamous  and  inefficiently-at- 
tired, proprietors  is  at  this  date  impossible.  But,  oh! 
what  claim  have  you  to  its  possession?" 

"Why,  none  whatever,"  said  the  parliamentarian; 
"and  to  contend  as  much  would  be  the  apex  of  un- 
reason. For  this  diamond  belongs,  of  course,  to  mv 
cousin  the  Earl  of  Eiran " 

"As  a  thief's  legacy!"  She  spoke  with  signs  of 
irritation. 

"Eh,  eh,  you  go  too  fast!  Eiran,  to  do  him  justice, 
is  not  a  graduate  in  peculation.  At  worst,  he  is  only 
the  sort  of  fool  one's  cousins  ordinarily  are." 

The  trousered  lady  walked  to  and  fro  for  a  while, 
with  the  impatience  of  a  caged  lioness.  "I  perceive 
I  must  go  more  deeply  into  matters,"  Miss  Ogle  re- 
marked, and,  with  that  habitual  gesture  which  he 
fondly  recognized,  brushed  back  a  straying  lock  of 
hair.  "In  any  event."  she  continued,  "you  cannot 
with  reason  deny  that  the  world's  wealth  is  inequitably 
distributed?" 
T94  . 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGLE 


"Madam,"  Mr.  Sheridan  returned,  "as  a  member 
of  Parliament,  I  have  necessarily  made  it  a  rule  never 
to  understand  political  economy.  It  is  as  apt  as  not 
to  prove  you  are  selling  your  vote  to  the  wrong  side 
of  the  House,  and  that  hurts  one's  conscience. " 

"Ah,  that  is  because  you  are  a  man.  Men  are  not 
practical.  None  of  you  has  ever  dared  to  insist  on 
his  opinion  about  anything  until  he  had  secured  the 
cowardly  corroboration  of  a  fact  or  so  to  endorse 
him.  It  is  a  pity.  Yet,  since  through  no  fault  of 
yours  your  sex  is  invariably  misled  by  its  hallucina- 
tions as  to  the  importance  of  being  rational,  I  will 
refrain  from  logic  and  statistics.  In  a  word,  I  simply 
inform  you  that  I  am  a  member  of  the  League  of 
Philanthropic  Larcenists." 

"I  had  not  previously  heard  of  this  organization," 
said  Mr.  Sheridan,  and  not  without  suspecting  his 
response  to  be  a  masterpiece  in  the  inadequate. 

"Our  object  is  the  benefit  of  society  at  large,"  Miss 
Ogle  explained ;  "and  our  obstacles  so  far  have  been, 
in  chief,  the  fetish  of  proprietary  rights  and  the 
ubiquity  of  the  police." 

And  with  that  she  seated  herself  and  told  him  of  the 
league's  inception  by  a  handful  of  reflective  persons, 
admirers  of  Rousseau  and  converts  to  his  tenets,  who 
were  resolved  to  better  the  circumstances  of  the  indi- 
gent. With  amiable  ardor  Miss  Ogle  explained  how 
from  the  petit  larcenies  of  charity-balls  and  personally 
solicited  subscriptions  the  league  had  mounted  to  an 
ampler  field  of  depredation ;  and  through  what  means 

195 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


it  now  took  toll  from  every  form  of  wealth  unright- 
eously acquired.  Divertingly  she  described  her  per- 
sonal experiences  in  the  separation  of  usurers,  thieves, 
financiers,  hereditary  noblemen,  popular  authors,  and 
other  social  parasites,  from  the  ill-got  profits  of  their 
disreputable  vocations.  And  her  account  of  how,  on 
the  preceding  Tuesday,  she,  single-handed,  had  robbed 
Sir  Alexander  McRae — who  then  enjoyed  a  fortune 
and  an  enviable  reputation  for  philanthropy,  thanks 
to  the  combination  of  glucose,  vitriol  and  other  chemi- 
cals which  he  prepared  under  the  humorous  pretext 
of  manufacturing  beer — wrung  high  encomiums  from 
Mr.  Sheridan. 

"The  proceeds  of  these  endeavors,"  Miss  Ogle 
added,  "are  conscientiously  devoted  to  ameliorating 
the  condition  of  meritorious  paupers.  I  would  be 
happy  to  submit  to  you  our  annual  report.  Then  you 
may  judge  for  yourself  how  many  families  we  have 
snatched  from  the  depths  of  poverty  and  habitual  in- 
toxication to  the  comparative  comfort  of  a  vine-em- 
bowered cottage/' 

Mr.  Sheridan  replied:  "I  have  not  ever  known  of 
any  case  where  adoration  needed  an  affidavit  for 
foundation.  Oh,  no,  incomparable  Esther  Jane!  I 
am  not  in  a  position  to  be  solaced  by  the  reports  of 
a  corresponding  secretary.  I  gave  my  heart  long 
since ;  to-night  I  fling  my  confidence  into  the  bargain ; 
and  am  resolved  to  serve  whole-heartedly  the  cause 
to  which  you  are  devoced.  In  consequence,  I  venture 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGL 


to  propose  my  name  for  membership  in  the  enter- 
prise you  advocate  and  indescribably  adorn." 

Miss  Ogle  was  all  one  blush,  such  was  the  fervor 
of  his  utterance.  "But  first  you  must  win  your  spurs, 
Mr.  Sheridan.  I  confess  you  are  not  abhorrent  to 
me,"  she  hurried  on,  "for  you  are  the  most  fascinat- 
ingly hideous  man  I  have  ever  seen ;  and  it  was  always 
the  apprehension  that  you  might  look  on  burglary  as 
an  unmaidenly  avocation  which  has  compelled  me  to 
discourage  your  addresses.  Now  all  is  plain;  and 
should  you  happen  to  distinguish  yourself  in  robbery 
of  the  criminally  opulent,  you  will  have,  I  believe,  no 
reason  to  complain  of  a  twelfth  refusal.  I  cannot 
modestly  say  more." 

He  laughed.  "It  is  a  bargain.  We  will  agree  that 
I  bereave  some  person  of  either  stolen  or  unearned 

property,  say,  to  the  value  of  £10,000 "  And  with 

his  usual  carefulness  in  such  matters,  Mr.  Sheridan 
entered  the  wager  in  his  notebook. 

She  yielded  him  her  hand  in  token  of  assent.  And 
he,  depend  upon  it,  kissed  that  velvet  trifle  fondly. 

"And  now,"  said  Mr.  Sheridan,  "to-morrow  we 
will  visit  Bemerside  and  obtain  possession  of  that 
crystal  which  is  in  train  to  render  me  the  happiest  of 
men.  The  task  will  be  an  easy  one,  as  Eiran  is  now 
in  England,  and  his  servants  for  the  most  part  are  my 
familiars." 

"I  agree  to  your  proposal,"  she  answered.  "But 
this  diamond  is  my  allotted  quarry ;  and  any  assistance 
you  may  render  me  in  procuring  it  will  not,  of  course, 

197 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


affect  in  any  way  our  bargain.  On  this  point" — she 
spoke  with  a  break  of  laughter — "I  am  as  headstrong 
as  an  allegory  on  the  banks  of  the  Nile." 

"To  quote  an  author  to  his  face/*  lamented  Mr. 
Sheridan,  "is  bribery  as  gross  as  it  is  efficacious.  I 
must  unwillingly  consent  to  your  exorbitant  demands, 
for  you  are,  as  always,  the  irresistible  Ogle." 

Miss  Ogle  bowed  her  gratitude;  and,  declining  Mr. 
Sheridan's  escort,  for  fear  of  arousing  gossip  by  being 
seen  upon  the  street  with  him  at  this  late  hour,  pre- 
ferred to  avoid  any  appearance  of  indecorum  by 
climbing  down  the  kitchen  roof. 

When  she  had  gone,  Mr.  Sheridan  very  gallantly 
attempted  a  set  of  verses.  But  the  Muse  was  not  to 
be  wooed  to-night,  and  stayed  obstinately  coy. 

Mr.  Sheridan  reflected,  rather  forlornly,  that  he 
wrote  nothing  nowadays.  There  was,  of  course,  his 
great  comedy,  Affectation,  his  masterpiece  which  he 
meant  to  finish  at  one  time  or  another;  yet,  at  the 
bottom  of  his  heart,  he  knew  that  he  would-  never 
finish  it.  But,  then,  deuce  take  posterity!  for  to 
have  written  the  best  comedy,  the  best  farce,  and  the 
best  burlesque  as  well,  that  England  had  ever  known, 
was  a  very  prodigal  wiping-out  of  every  obligation 
toward  posterity.  Boys  thought  a  deal  about  posterity, 
as  he  remembered;  but  a  sensible  man  would  bear 
in  mind  that  all  this  world's  delicacies — its  merry 
diversions,  its  venison  and  old  wines,  its  handsomely- 
bound  books  and  fiery-hearted  jewels  and  sumptuous 

198 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGLE 


clothings,  all  its  lovely  things  that  can  be  touched  and 
handled,  and  more  especially  its  ear-tickling  applause 
--were  to  be  won,  if  ever,  from  one's  contemporaries. 
And  people  were  generous  toward  social,  rather  than 
literary,  talents  for  the  sensible  reason  that  they  de- 
rived more  pleasure  from  an  agreeable  companion 
at  dinner  than  from  having  a  rainy  afternoon  ren- 
dered endurable  by  some  book  or  another. 
So  the  parliamentarian  sensibly  went  to  bed. 

Miss  Ogle  during  this  Scottish  trip  was  accom- 
panied by  her  father,  the  venerable  Dean  of  Win- 
chester. The  Dean,  although  in  all  things  worthy  of 
implicit  confidence,  was  not  next  day  informed  of  the 
intended  expedition,  in  deference  to  public  opinion, 
which,  as  Miss  Ogle  pointed  out,  regards  a  clergy- 
man's participation  in  a  technical  felony  with  disap- 
proval. 

Miss  Ogle,  therefore,  radiant  in  a  becoming  gown 
of  pink  lute-string,  left  Edinburgh  the  following 
morning  under  cover  of  a  subterfuge,  and  with  Mr. 
Sheridan  as  her  only  escort.  He  was  at  pains  to  adorn 
this  role  with  so  many  happy  touches  of  courtesy  and 
amiability  that  their  confinement  in  the  postchaise 
appeared  to  both  of  incredible  brevity. 

When  they  had  reached  Melrose  another  chaise  was 
ordered  to  convey  them  to  Bemerside ;  and  pending  its 
forthcoming  Mr.  Sheridan  and  Miss  Ogle  strolled 
among  the  famous  ruins  of  Melrose  Abbey.  The 
parliamentarian  had  caused  his  hair  to  be  exuberantly 

199 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


curled  that  morning,  and  figured  to  advantage  in  a 
plum-colored  coat  and  a  saffron  waistcoat  sprigged 
with  forget-me-nots.  He  chatted  entertainingly  con- 
cerning the  Second  Pointed  style  of  architecture; 
translated  many  of  the  epitaphs;  and  was  abundant  in 
interesting  information  as  to  Robert  Bruce,  and 
Michael  Scott,  and  the  rencounter  of  Chevy  Chase. 

"Oh,  but  observe,"  said  Mr.  Sheridan,  more  lately, 
"our  only  covering  is  the  dome  of  heaven.  Yet  in 
their  time  these  aisles  were  populous,  and  here  a  score 
of  generations  have  besought  what  earth  does  not 
afford — now  where  the  banners  of  crusaders  waved 
the  ivy  flutters,  and  there  is  no  incense  in  this  conse- 
crated house  except  the  breath  of  the  wild  rose." 

'The  moral  is  an  old  one,"  she  returned.  "Mummy 
is  become  merchandise,  Mizraim  cures  wounds,  and 
Pharaoh  is  sold  for  balsams." 

"You  are  a  reader,  madam?"  he  observed,  with 
some  surprise ;  and  he  continued :  "Indeed,  my 
thoughts  were  on  another  trail.  I  was  considering  that 
the  demolishers  of  this  place — those  English  armies, 
those  followers  of  John  Knox — were  actuated  by  the 
highest  and  most  laudable  of  motives.  As  a  result 
we  find  the  house  of  Heaven  converted  into  a  dust- 
heap." 

"I  believe  you  attempt  an  apologue,"  she  said,  in- 
dignantly. "Upon  my  word,  I  think  you  would  in- 
sinuate that  philanthropy,  when  forced  to  manifest 
itself  through  embezzlement,  is  a  less  womanly  em- 
ployment than  the  darning  of  stockings!" 
200 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGLE 


"Whom  the  cap  fits "  he  answered,  with  a  bow. 

"Indeed,  incomparable  Esther  Jane,  I  had  said  noth- 
ing whatever  touching  hosiery;  and  it  was  equally 
remote  from  my  intentions  to  set  up  as  a  milliner." 

They  lunched  at  Bemerside,  where  Mr.  Sheridan 
was  cordially  received  by  the  steward,  and  a  well- 
chosen  repast  was  placed  at  their  disposal. 

"Fergus,"  Mr.  Sheridan  observed,  as  they  chat- 
ted over  their  dessert  concerning  famous  gems — in 
which  direction  talk  had  been  adroitly  steered — 
"Fergus,  since  we  are  on  the  topic,  I  would  like  to 
show  Miss  Ogle  the  Honor  of  Eiran." 

The  Honor  of  Eiran  was  accordingly  produced 
from  a  blue  velvet  case,  and  was  properly  admired. 
Then,  when  the  steward  had  been  dismissed  to  fetch 
a  rare  liqueur,  Mr.  Sheridan  laughed,  and  tossed  and 
.caught  the  jewel,  as  though  he  handled  a  cricket-ball. 
'It  was  the  size  of  a  pigeon's  egg,  and  was  set  among 
eight  gems  of  lesser  magnitude;  and  in  transit  through 
the  sunlight  the  trinket  flashed  and  glittered  with  dia- 
bolical beauty.  The  parliamentarian  placed  three  bits 
of  sugar  in  the  velvet  case  and  handed  the  gem  to 
his  companion. 

"The  bulk  is  much  the  same,"  he  observed;  "and 
whether  the  carbon  be  crystallized  or  no,  is  the  re- 
sponsibility of  stratigraphic  geology.  Fergus,  per- 
haps, must  go  to  jail.  That  is  unfortunate.  But  true 
philanthropy  works  toward  the  benefit  of  the  greatest 
number  possible ;  and  this  resplendent  pebble  will  pur- 

20 1 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


chase  you  innumerable  pounds  of  tea  and  a  ware- 
houseful  of  blankets." 

"But,  Mr.  Sheridan,"  Miss  Ogle  cried,  in  horror, 
"to  take  this  brooch  would  not  be  honest!" 

"Oh,  as  to  that !"  he  shrugged. 

" because  Lord  Eiran  purchased  all  these  lesser 

diamonds,  and  very  possibly  paid  for  them." 

Then  Mr.  Sheridan  reflected,  stood  abashed,  and 
said :  "Incomparable  Esther  Jane,  I  confess  I  am  only 
a  man.  You  are  entirely  right.  To  purloin  any  of 
these  little  diamonds  would  be  an  abominable  action, 
whereas  to  make  off  with  the  only  valuable  one  is 
simply  a  stroke  of  retribution.  I  will,  therefore,  at- 
tempt to  prise  it  out  with  a  nutpick." 

Three  constables  came  suddenly  into  the  room. 
"We  hae  been  tauld  this  missy  is  a  suspectit  thieving 
body,"  their  leader  cried.  "Esther  Jane  Ogle,  ye 
maun  gae  with  us  i'  the  law's  name.  Ou  ay,  lass, 
ye  ken  weel  eneugh  wha  robbit  auld  Sir  Aleexander 
McRae,  sae  dinna  ye  say  naething  tae  your  ain 
preejudice,  lest  ye  hae  tae  account  for  it  a'." 

Mr.  Sheridan  rose  to  the  occasion.  "My  exceedingly 
good  friend,  Angus  Howden !  I  am  unwilling  to  con- 
cede that  yeomen  can  excel  in  gentlemanly  accomplish- 
ments, but  it  is  only  charity  to  suppose  all  three  of 
you  as  drunk  as  any  duke  that  ever  honored  me  with 
his  acquaintance."  This  he  drawled,  and  appeared 
magisterially  to  await  an  explanation. 

"Hout,  Mr.  Sheridan,"  commenced  the  leading  rep- 
resentative of  justice,  "let  that  flee  stick  i'  the  wa' — 
202 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGLE 


ye  dinna  mean  tae  tell  me,  sir,  that  ye  are  acquaintit 
wi'  this — ou  ay,  tae  pleasure  ye,  I  micht  e'en  say  wi' 
this—" 

"This  lady,  probably?"  Mr.  Sheridan  hazarded. 

"  Tis  an  unco  thing,"  the  constable  declared,  "but 
that  wad  be  the  word  was  amaist  at  my  tongue's  tip." 

"Why,  undoubtedly,"  Mr.  Sheridan  assented.  "I 
rejoice  that,  being  of  French  extraction,  and  uncon- 
versant  with  your  somewhat  cryptic  patois,  the  lady 
in  question  is  the  less  likely  to  have  been  sickened  by 
your  extravagances  in  the  way  of  misapprehension. 
I  candidly  confess  such  imbecility  annoys  me.  What !" 
he  cried  out,  "what  if  I  marry!  is  matrimony  to  be 
ranked  with  arson?  And  what  if  my  cousin,  Eiran, 
affords  me  a  hiding-place  wherein  to  sneak  through 
our  honeymoon  after  the  cowardly  fashion  of  all 
modern  married  couples !  Am  I  in  consequence  com- 
pelled to  submit  to  the  invasions  of  an  intoxicated 
constabulary?"  His  rage  was  terrific. 

"Voilb  la  seule  devise.  Us  me  connaissent,  Us  ont 
confidence  dans  moi.  Si,  taisez-vous!  Si  non,  vous 
serez  arretee  et  mise  dans  la  prison,  comme  une 
caractere  suspicieuse !"  Mr.  Sheridan  exhorted  Miss 
Ogle  to  this  intent  with  more  of  earnestness  than 
linguistic  perfection;  and  he  rejoiced  to  see  that  in- 
stantly she  caught  at  her  one  chance  of  plausibly  ac- 
counting for  her  presence  at  Bemerside,  and  of  effect- 
ing a  rescue  from  this  horrid  situation. 

"But  I  also  spik  the  English,"  she  sprightlily  an- 
nounced. "I  am  appleed  myself  at  to  learn  its  by 

203 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


heart.  Certainly  you  look  for  a  needle  in  a  hay  bun- 
dle, my  gentlemans.  I  am  no  stealer  of  the  grand 
road,  but  the  wife  of  Mistaire  Sheridan,  and  her  pres- 
ence will  say  to  you  the  remains.'* 

"You  see!"  cried  Mr.  Sheridan,  in  modest  tri- 
umph. "In  short,  I  am  a  bridegroom  unwarrantably 
interrupted  in  his  first  tete-a-tete,  I  am  responsible  for 
this  lady  and  all  her  past  and  its  appurtenances ;  and, 
in  a  phrase,  for  everything  except  the  course  of  con- 
duct I  will  undoubtedly  pursue  should  you  be  visible  at 
the  conclusion  of  the  next  five  minutes." 

His  emphasis  was  such  that  the  police  withdrew 
with  a  concomitant  of  apologies. 

"And  now  I  claim  my  bond,"  said  Mr.  Sheridan, 
when  they  were  once  again  free  from  intrusion. 
"For  we  two  are  in  Scotland,  where  the  common 
declaration  of  a  man  and  woman  that  they  are  mar- 
ried constitutes  a  marriage." 

"Oh !"  she  exclaimed,  and  stood  encrimsoned. 

"Indeed,  I  must  confess  that  the  day's  work  has 
been  a  trick  throughout.  The  diamond  was  pawned 
years  ago.  This  trinket  here  is  a  copy  in  paste  and 
worth  perhaps  some  seven  shillings  sixpence.  And 
those  fellows  were  not  constables,  but  just  my  cousin 
Eiran  and  two  footmen  in  disguise.  Nay,  madam,  you 
will  learn  with  experience  that  to  display  unfailing 
candor  is  not  without  exception  the  price  of  happi- 


204 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGLE 


"But  this,  I  think,  evades  our  bargain,  Mr.  Sheridan. 
For  you  were  committed  to  pilfer  property  to  the 
value  of  £10,000 " 

"And  to  fulfil  the  obligation  I  have  stolen  your 
hand  in  marriage.  What,  madam!  do  you  indeed 
pretend  that  any  person  outside  of  Bedlam  would 
value  you  at  less?  Believe  me,  your  perfections  are 
of  far  more  worth.  All  persons  recognize  that  save 
yourself,  incomparable  Esther  Jane;  and  yet,  so 
patent  is  the  proof  of  my  contention,  I  dare  to  leave 
the  verdict  to  your  sense  of  justice." 

Miss  Ogle  did  not  speak.  Her  lashes  fell  as,  with 
some  ceremony,  he  led  her  to  the  long  French  mirror 
which  was  in  the  breakfast  room.  "See  now!"  said 
Mr.  Sheridan.  "You,  who  endanger  life  and  fame 
in  order  to  provide  a  mendicant  with  gruel,  tracts  and 
blankets!  You,  who  deny  a  sop  to  the  one  hunger 
which  is  vital!  Oh,  madam,  I  am  tempted  glibly  to 
compare  your  eyes  to  sapphires,  and  your  hair  to 
thin-spun  gold,  and  the  color  of  your  flesh  to  the 
arbutus-flower — for  that,  as  you  can  see,  would  be 
within  the  truth,  and  it  would  please  most  women, 
and  afterward  they  would  not  be  so  obdurate.  But 
you  are  not  like  other  women,"  Mr.  Sheridan  ob- 
served, with  admirable  dexterity.  "And  I  aspire  to 
you,  the  irresistible  Ogle !  you,  who  so  great-heartedly 
befriend  the  beggar!  you,  who  with  such  industry  con- 
trive alleviation  for  the  discomforts  of  poverty.  Eh, 
eh!  what  will  you  grant  to  any  beggar  such  as  I? 
Will  you  deny  a  sop  to  the  one  hunger  which  is  vital  ?" 

205 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


He  spoke  with  unaccustomed  vigor,  even  in  a  sort 
of  terror,  because  he  knew  that  he  was  speaking  with 
sincerity. 

"To  the  one  hunger  which  is  vital!"  he  repeated. 
"Ah,  where  lies  the  secret  which  makes  one  face  the 
dearest  in  the  world,  and  entrusts  to  one  little  hand  a 
life's  happiness  as  a  plaything?  All  Aristotle's  learn- 
ing could  not  unriddle  the  mystery,  and  Samson's 
thews  were  impotent  to  break  that  spell.  Love  van- 
quishes all.  .  .  .  You  would  remind  me  of  some 
previous  skirmishings  with  Venus's  unconquerable 
brat?  Nay,  madam,  to  the  contrary,  the  fact  that  I 
have  loved  many  other  women  is  my  strongest  plea 
for  toleration.  Were  there  nothing  else,  it  is  indis- 
putable we  perform  all  actions  better  for  having  re- 
hearsed them.  No,  we  do  not  of  necessity  perform 
them  the  more  thoughtlessly  as  well;  for,  indeed,  I 
find  that  with  experience  a  man  becomes  increasingly 
difficult  to  please  in  affairs  of  the  heart.  The  woman 
one  loves  then  is  granted  that  pre-eminence  not  merely 
by  virtue  of  having  outshone  any  particular  one  of 
her  predecessors;  oh,  no!  instead,  her  qualities  have 
been  compared  with  all  the  charms  of  all  her  fair 
forerunners,  and  they  have  endured  that  stringent 
testing.  The  winning  of  an  often-bartered  heart  is  in 
reality  the  only  conquest  which  entitles  a  woman  to 
complacency,  for  she  has  received  a  real  compliment; 
whereas  to  be  selected  as  the  target  of  a  lad's  first 
declaration  is  a  tribute  of  no  more  value  than  a  man's 
opinion  upon  vintages  who  has  never  tasted  wine." 
206 


THE     IRRESISTIBLE     OGLE 


He  took  a  turn  about  the  breakfast  room,  then  came 
near  to  her.  "1  love  you.  Were  there  any  way  to 
parade  the  circumstance  and  bedeck  it  with  pleasing 
adornments  of  filed  phrases,  tropes  and  far-fetched 
similes,  I  would  not  grudge  you  a  deal  of  verbal 
pageantry.  But  three  words  say  all.  I  love  you. 
There  is  no  act  in  my  past  life  but  appears  trivial  and 
strange  to  me,  and  to  the  man  who  performed  it  I 
seem  no  more  akin  than  to  Mark  Antony  or  Nebu- 
chadnezzar. I  love  you.  The  skies  are  bluer  since  you 
came,  the  beauty  of  this  world  we  live  in  oppresses  me 
with  a  fearful  joy,  and  in  my  heart  there  is  always  the 
thought  of  you  and  such  yearning  as  I  may  not  word. 
For  I  love  you/' 

"You — but  you  have  frightened  me."  Miss  Ogle 
did  not  seem  so  terrified  as  to  make  any  effort  to 
recede  from  him ;  and  yet  he  saw  that  she  was  fright- 
ened in  sober  earnest.  Her  face  showed  pale,  and 
soft,  and  glad,  and  awed,  and  desirable  above  all 
things;  and  it  remained  so  near  him  as  to  engender 
riotous  aspirations. 

"I  love  you,"  he  said  again.  You  would  never  have 
suspected  this  man  could  speak,  upon  occasion,  flu- 
ently. "I  think — I  think  that  Heaven  was  prodigal 
when  Heaven  made  you.  To  think  of  you  is  as  if  I 
listened  to  an  exalted  music;  and  to  be  with  you  is  to 
understand  that  all  imaginable  sorrows  are  just  the 
figments  of  a  dream  which  I  had  very  long  ago." 

She  laid  one  hand  on  each  of  his  shoulders,  fac- 
ing him.  "Do  not  let  me  be  too  much  afraid!  I 

207 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


have  not  ever  been  afraid  before.  Oh,  everything  is 
in  a  mist  of  gold,  and  I  am  afraid  of  you,  and  of  the 
big  universe  which  I  was  born  into,  and  I  am  help- 
less, and  I  would  have  nothing  changed!  Only,  I 
cannot  believe  1  am  worth  £10,000,  and  I  do  so  want 
to  be  persuaded  I  am.  It  is  a  great  pity,"  she  sighed, 
"that  you  who  convicted  Warren  Hastings  of  steal- 
ing such  enormous  wealth  cannot  be  quite  as  eloquent 
to-day  as  you  were  in  the  Otidh  speech,  and  convince 
me  his  arraigner  has  been  equally  rapacious!" 

"I  mean  to  prove  as  much — with  time/'  said  Mr. 
Sheridan.  His  breathing  was  yet  perfunctory. 

Miss  Ogle  murmured,  "And  how  long  would  you 
require?" 

"Why,  I  intend,  with  your  permission,  to  devote 
the  remainder  of  my  existence  to  the  task.  Eh,  I  con- 
cede that  space  too  brief  for  any  adequate  discussion 
of  the  topic ;  but  I  will  try  to  be  concise  and  very  prac- 
tical  » 

She  laughed.  They  were  content.  "Try,  then " 

Miss  Ogle  said. 

She  was  able  to  get  no  farther  in  the  sentence, 

for  reasons  which  to  particularize  would  be  indis- 
creet. 


208 


A  PRINCESS  OF  GRUB  STREET 


"Though — or,  rather,  because — VANDERHOFFEN  was 
a  child  of  the  French  Revolution,  and  inherited  his 
social,  political  and  religious — orf  rather,  anti-religious — 
views  from  the  French  writers  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
England  was  not  ready  for  him  and  the  unshackled  indi- 
vidualism for  which  he  at  first  contended.  Recognizing 
this  fact,  he  turned  to  an  order  of  writing  begotten  of 
the  deepest  popular  needs  and  addressed  to  the  best  intel- 
ligence of  the  great  middle  classes  of  the  community." 


Now  emperors  bide  their  times'  rebuff 
I  would  not  be  a  king — enough 

Of  woe  it  is  to  love ; 
The  paths  of  power  are  steep  and  rough, 

And  tempests  reign  above. 

I  would  not  climb  the  imperial  throne ; 
Tis  built  on  ice  which  fortune's  sun 

Thaws  in  the  height  of  noon. 
Then  farewell,  kings,  that  squeak  'Ha*  done  T 

To  time's  full-throated  tune. 

PAUL  VANDERHOFFEN.     Emma 
and  Caroline. 


A  PRINCESS  OF  GRUB  STREET 


IT  is  questionable  if  the  announcement  of  the  death 
of  their  Crown  Prince,  Hilary,  upon  the  verge  of 
his  accession  to  the  throne,  aroused  more  than 
genteel  regret  among  the  inhabitants  of  Saxe-Kessel- 
berg.  It  is  indisputable  that  in  diplomatic  circles  news 
of  this  horrible  occurrence  was  indirectly  conceded  in 
1803  to  smack  of  a  direct  intervention  of  Providence. 
For  to  consider  all  the  havoc  dead  Prince  Fribble — 
such  had  been  his  sobriquet — would  have  created,  Dei 
gratia,  through  his  pilotage  of  an  important  grand- 
duchy  (with  an  area  of  no  less  than  eighty-nine  square 
miles)  was  less  discomfortable  now  prediction  was  an 
academic  matter. 

And  so  the  editors  of  divers  papers  were  the  victims 
of  a  decorous  anguish,  court-mourning  was  decreed, 
and  that  wreckage  which  passed  for  the  mutilated  body 
of  Prince  Hilary  was  buried  with  every  appropriate 
honor.  Within  the  week  most  people  had  forgotten 
him,  for  everybody  was  discussing  the  execution  of 
the  Due  d'Enghein.  And  the  aged  un venerable  Grand- 
Duke  of  Saxe-Kesselberg  died  too  in  the  same  March ; 

211 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


and  afterward  his  other  grandson,  Prince  Augustus, 
reigned  in  the  merry  old  debauchee's  stead. 

Prince  Hilary  was  vastly  pleased.  His  scheme  for 
evading  the  tedious  responsibilities  of  sovereignty  had 
been  executed  without  a  hitch ;  he  was  officially  dead ; 
and,  on  the  whole,  standing  bareheaded  between  a 
miller  and  laundress,  he  had  found  his  funeral  cere- 
monies to  be  unimpeachably  conducted.  He  assumed 
the.  name  of  Paul  Vanderhoffen,  selected  at  random 
from  the  novel  he  was  reading  when  his  postchaise 
conveyed  him  past  the  frontier  of  Saxe-Kesselberg. 
Freed,  penniless,  and  thoroughly  content,  he  set  about 
amusing  himself — having  a  world  to  frisk  in — and 
incidentally  about  the  furnishing  of  his  new  friend 
Paul  Vanderhoffen  with  life's  necessaries. 

It  was  a  little  more  than  two  years  later  that  the 
good-natured  Earl  of  Brudenel  suggested  to  Lady* 
John  Claridge  that  she  could  nowhere  find  a  more 
eligible  tutor  for  her  son  than  young  Vanderhoffen. 

"Hasn't  a  shilling,  ma'am,  but  one  of  the  most 
popular  men  in  London.  His  poetry  book  was  sub- 
scribed for  by  the  Prince  Regent  and  half  the  not- 
ables of  the  kingdom.  Capital  company  at  a  dinner- 
table — stutters,  begad,  like  a  What-you-may-call-'em, 
and  keeps  everybody  in  a  roar — and  when  he's  had  his 
whack  of  claret,  he  sings  his  own  songs  to  the  piano, 
you  know,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing,  and  has  quite 
put  Tommy  Moore's  nose  out  of  joint.  Nobody  knows 
much  about  him,  but  that  don't  matter  with  these  lit- 

212 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

erary  chaps,  does  it  now  ?  Goes  everywhere,  ma'am — 
quite  a  favorite  at  Carlton  House — a  highly  agreeable, 
well-informed  man,  I  can  assure  you — and  probably 
hasn't  a  shilling  to  pay  the  cabman.  Deuced  odd,  ain't 
it  ?  But  Lord  Lansdowne  is  trying  to  get  him  a  place 
— spoke  to  me  about  a  tutorship,  ma'am,  in  fact,  just 
to  keep  Vanderhoffen  going,  until  some  registrarship 
or  other  falls  vacant.  Now,  I  ain't  clever  and  that 
sort  of  thing,  but  I  quite  agree  with  Lansdowne  that 
we  practical  men  ought  to  look  out  for  these  clever 
fellows — see  that  they  don't  starve  in  a  garret,  like 
poor  What's-his-name,  don't  you  know?" 

Lady  Claridge  sweetly  agreed  with  her  future  son- 
in-law.  So  it  befell  that  shortly  after  this  conversa- 
tion Paul  Vanderhoffen  came  to  Leamington  Manor, 
and  through  an  entire  summer  goaded  young  Percival 
Qaridge,  then  on  the  point  of  entering  Cambridge, 
but  pedagogically  branded  as  "deficient  in  mathe- 
matics," through  many  elaborate  combinations  of  x 
and  3;  and  cosines  and  hyperbolas. 

Lady  John  Claridge,  mother  to  the  pupil,  approved 
of  the  new  tutor.  True,  he  talked  much  and  wild- 
ishly;  but  literary  men  had  a  name  for  eccentricity, 
and,  besides,  Lady  Claridge  always  dealt  with  the 
opinions  of  other  people  as  matters  of  illimitable  un- 
importance. This  incisive  lady,  to  be  sure,  was  in 
these  days  vouchsafing  to  the  universe  at  large  a  fine 
and  new  benevolence,  now  that  her  daughter  was 
safely  engaged  to  Lord  Brudenel,  who,  whatever  his 
other  virtues,  was  certainly  a  peer  of  England  and  very 

213 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


rich.  It  seems  irrelevant,  and  yet  for  the  tale's  sake 
is  noteworthy,  that  any  room  which  harbored  Lady 
John  Claridge  was  through  this  fact  converted  into 
an  absolute  monarchy. 

And  so,  by  the  favor  of  Lady  Claridge  and  destiny, 
the  tutor  stayed  at  Leamington  Manor  all  summer. 

There  was  nothing  in  either  the  appearance  or 
demeanor  of  the  fiancee  of  Lord  Brudenel's  title  and 
superabundant  wealth  which  any  honest  gentleman 
could,  hand  upon  his  heart,  describe  as  blatantly  re- 
pulsive. 

It  may  not  be  denied  the  tutor  noted  this.  In  fine, 
he  fell  in  love  with  Mildred  Claridge  after  a  thorough- 
going fashion  such  as  Prince  Fribble  would  have 
found  amusing.  Prince  Fribble  would  have  smiled, 
shrugged,  drawled,  "Eh,  after  all,  the  girl  is  hand- 
some and  deplorably  cold-blooded!"  Paul  Vander- 
hoffen  said,  "I  am  not  fit  to  live  in  the  same  world 
with  her,"  and  wrote  many  verses  in  the  prevailing 
Oriental  style — rich  in  allusions  to  roses,  and  bulbuls, 
and  gazelles,  and  peris,  and  minarets — which  he  sold 
rather  profitably. 

Meanwhile,  far  oversea,  the  reigning  Duke  of  Saxe- 
Kesselberg  had  been  unwise  enough  to  quarrel  with 
his  Chancellor,  Georges  Desmarets,  an  invaluable  man 
whose  only  faults  were  dishonesty  and  a  too  intimate 
acquaintance  with  the  circumstances  of  Prince 
Hilary's  demise.  As  fruit  of  this  indiscretion,  an  in- 
considerable tutor  at  Leamington  Manor — whom 
214 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

Lady  John  Claridge  regarded  as  a  sort  of  upper 
servant — was  talking  with  a  visitor. 

The  tutor,  it  appeared,  preferred  to  talk  with  the 
former  Chancellor  of  Saxe-Kesselberg  in  the  middle 
of  an  open  field.  The  time  was  afternoon,  the  season 
September,  and  the  west  was  vaingloriously  justifying 
the  younger  man's  analogy  of  a  gigantic  Spanish 
omelette.  Meanwhile,  the  younger  man  declaimed  in  a 
high-pitched  pleasant  voice,  wherein  there  was,  as  al- 
ways, the  elusive  suggestion  of  a  stutter. 

"I  repeat  to  you,"  the  tutor  observed,  "that  no 
consideration  will  ever  make  a  grand-duke  of  me  ex- 
cepting over  my  dead  body.  Why  don't  you  recom- 
mend some  not  quite  obsolete  vocation,  such  as  mak- 
ing papyrus,  or  writing  an  interesting  novel,  or  teach- 
ing people  how  to  dance  a  saraband?  For  after  all, 
what  is  a  monarch  nowadays — oh,  even  a  monarch 
of  the  first  class?"  he  argued,  with  what  came  near 
being  a  squeak  of  indignation.  "The  poor  man  is  a 
rather  pitiable  and  perfectly  useless  relic  of  barbarism, 
now  that  1789  has  opened  our  eyes;  and  his  main 
business  in  life  is  to  ride  in  open  carriages  and  bow 
to  an  applauding  public  who  are  applauding  at  so 
much  per  head.  He  must  expect  to  be  aspersed  with 
calumny,  and  once  in  a  while  with  bullets.  He  may 
at  the  utmost  aspire  to  introduce  an  innovation  in 
evening  dress, — the  Prince  Regent,  for  instance,  has 
invented  a  really  very  creditable  shoe-buckle.  Tra- 

215 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


dition  obligates  him  to  devote  his  unofficial  hours  to 
sheer  depravity " 

Paul  Vanderhoffen  paused  to  meditate. 

"Why,  there  you  are!  another  obstacle!  I  have  in 
an  inquiring  spirit  and  without  prejudice  sampled  all 
the  Seven  Deadly  Sins,  and  the  common  increment 
was  an  inability  to  enjoy  my  breakfast.  A  grand- 
duke,  I  take  it,  if  he  have  any  sense  of  the  responsi- 
bilities of  his  position,  will  piously  remember  the 
adage  about  the  voice  of  the  people  and  hasten  to 
be  steeped  in  vice — and  thus  conform  to  every  popular 
notion  concerning  a  grand-duke.  Why,  common  in- 
telligence demands  that  a  grand-duke  should  brazenly 
misbehave  himself  upon  the  more  conspicuous*  high- 
places  of  Chemosh!  and  personally,  I  have  no  talents 
such  as  would  qualify  me  for  a  life  of  cynical  and 
brutal  immorality.  I  lack  the  necessary  aptitude,  I 
would  not  ever  afford  any  spicy  gossip  concerning 
the  Duke  of  Saxe-Kesselberg,  and  the  editors  of  the 
society  papers  would  unanimously  conspire  to  de- 
throne me " 

Thus  he  argued,  with  his  high-pitched  pleasant 
voice,  wherein  there  was,  as  always,  the  elusive  sug- 
gestion of  a  stutter.  And  here  the  other  interrupted. 

"There  is  no  need  of  names,  your  highness." 
Georges  Desmarets  was  diminutive,  black-haired  and 
corpulent.  He  was  of  dapper  appearance,  point-de- 
vice in  everything,  and  he  reminded  you  of  a  perky 
robin. 

The  tutor  flung  out  an  "Ouf !  I  must  recall  to  you 
216 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

that,  thank  heaven,  I  am  not  anybody's  highness  any 
longer.  I  am  Paul  Vanderhoffen." 

"He  says  that  he  is  not  Prince  Fribble !"— the  little 
man  addressed  the  zenith — "as  if  any  other  person 
ever  succeeded  in  talking  a  half -hour  without  being 
betrayed  into  at  least  one  sensible  remark.  Oh,  how 
do  you  manage  without  fail  to  be  so  consistently  and 
stupendously  idiotic?" 

"It  is,  like  all  other  desirable  traits,  either  innate 
or  else  just  unattainable,"  the  other  answered.  "I 
am  so  hopelessly  light-minded  that  I  cannot  refrain 
from  being  rational  even  in  matters  which  concern  me 
personally — and  this,  of  course,  no  normal  being  ever 
thinks  of  doing.  I  really  cannot  help  it." 

The  Frenchman  groaned  whole-heartedly. 

"But  we  were  speaking — well,  of  foreign  countries. 
Now,  Paul  Vanderhoffen  has  read  that  in  one  of  these 
countries  there  was  once  a  prince  who  very  nar- 
rowly escaped  figuring  as  a  self-conscious  absurdity, 
as  an  anachronism,  as  a  life-long  prisoner  of  etiquette. 
However,  with  the  assistance  of  his  cousin — who, 
incidentally,  was  also  his  heir — the  prince  most  op- 
portunely died.  Oh,  pedant  that  you  are!  in  any 
event  he  was  interred.  And  so,  the  prince  was  gath- 
ered to  his  fathers,  and  his  cousin  Augustus  reigned 
in  his  stead.  Until  a  certain  politician  who  had  been 

privy  to  this  pious  fraud "  The  tutor  shrugged. 

"How  can  I  word  it  without  seeming  hypercritical?" 

Georges  Desmarets  stretched  out  appealing  hands. 
"But,  I  protest,  it  was  the  narrow-mindedness  of  that 

217 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


pernicious  prig,  your  cousin — who  firmly  believes  him- 
self to  be  an  improved  and  augmented  edition  of  the 
Four  Evangelists " 

"Well,  in  any  event,  the  proverb  was  attested  that 
birds  of  a  feather  make  strange  bedfellows.  There 
was  a  dispute  concerning  some  petit  larceny — some 
slight  discrepancy,  we  will  imagine,  since  all  this  is 
pure  romance,  in  the  politician's  accounts " 

"Now  you  belie  me "  said  the  black-haired  man, 

and  warmly. 

"Oh,  Desmarets,  you  are  as  vain  as  ever!  Let  us 
say,  then,  of  grand  larceny.  In  any  event,  the  poli- 
tician was  dismissed.  And  what,  my  dears,  do  you 
suppose  this  bold  and  bad  and  unprincipled  Machia- 
velli  went  and  did?  Why,  he  made  straight  for  the 
father  of  the  princess  the  usurping  duke  was  going 
to  marry,  and  surprised  everybody  by  showing  that, 
at  a  pinch,  even  this  Guy  Fawkes — who  was  stuffed 
with  all  manner  of  guile  and  wickedness  where  youth- 
ful patriotism  would  ordinarily  incline  to  straw — was 
capable  of  telling  the  truth.  And  so  the  father  broke 
off  the  match.  And  the  enamored,  if  usurping,  duke 
wept  bitterly  and  tore  his  hair  to  such  an  extent  he 
totally  destroyed  his  best  toupet.  And  privily  the 
Guy  Fawkes  came  into  the  presence  of  the  exiled  duke 
and  prated  of  a  restoration  to  ancestral  dignities. 
And  he  was  spurned  by  a  certain  highly  intelligent 
person  who  considered  it  both  tedious  and  ridiculous 
to  play  at  being  emperor  of  a  backyard.  And  then — 
I  really  don't  recall  what  happened.  But  there  was 
218 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

a  general  and  unqualified  deuce  to  pay  with  no  pitch 
at  a  really  satisfying  temperature." 

The  stouter  man  said  quietly:  "It  is  a  thrilling 
tale  which  you  narrate.  Only,  I  do  recall  what  hap- 
pened then.  The  usurping  duke  was  very  much  in 
earnest,  desirous  of  retaining  his  little  kingdom,  and 
particularly  desirous  of  the  woman  whom  he  loved. 
In  consequence,  he  had  Monsieur  the  Runaway  oblit- 
erated while  the  latter  was  talking  nonsense " 

The  tutor's  brows  had  mounted. 

"I  scorn  to  think  it  even  of  anybody  who  is  con- 
trolled in  every  action  by  a  sense  of  duty,"  Georges 
Desmarets  explained,  "that  Duke  Augustus  would 
cause  you  to  be  murdered  in  your  sleep." 

"A  hit!"  The  younger  man  unsmilingly  gesticu- 
lated like  one  who  has  been  touched  in  sword-play. 
"Behold  now,  as  the  populace  in  their  blunt  way  would 
phrase  it,  I  am  squelched." 

"And  so  the  usurping  duke  was  married  and  lived 
happily  ever  afterward."  Georges  Desmarets  contin- 
ued :  "I  repeat  to  you  there  is  only  the  choice  between 
declaring  yourself  and  being — we  will  say,  removed. 
Your  cousin  is  deeply  in  love  with  the  Princess  So- 
phia, and  thanks  to  me,  has  now  no  chance  of  marry- 
ing her  until  his  title  has  been  secured  by  your — 
removal.  Do  not  deceive  yourself.  High  interests 
are  involved.  You  are  the  grain  of  sand  between  big 
wheels.  I  iterate  that  the  footpad  who  attacked  you 
last  night  was  merely  a  prologue.  I  happen  to  know 
your  cousin  has  entrusted  the  affair  to  Heinrich  Oben- 

219 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


dorf,  his  foster-brother,  who,  as  you  will  remember, 
is  not  particularly  squeamish." 

Paul  Vanderhoffen  thought  a  while.  "Desmarets," 
he  said  at  last,  "it  is  no  use.  I  scorn  your  pribbles  and 
your  prabbles.  I  bargained  with  Augustus.  I  traded 
a  duchy  for  my  personal  liberty.  Frankly,  I  would 
be  sorry  to  connect  a  sharer  of  my  blood  with  the 
assault  of  yesterday.  To  be  unpardonably  candid, 
I  have  not  ever  found  that  your  assertion  of  an  event 
quite  proved  it  had  gone  through  the  formality  of 
occurring.  And  so  I  shall  hold  to  my  bargain." 

"The  night  brings  counsel,"  Desmarets  returned.  "It 
hardly  needs  a  night,  I  think,  to  demonstrate  that  all 
I  say  is  true." 

And  so  they  parted. 

Having  thus  dismissed  such  trifles  as  statecraft  and 
the  well-being  of  empires,  Paul  Vanderhoffen  turned 
toward  consideration  of  the  one  really  serious  subject 
in  the  universe,  which  was  of  course  the  bright,  mir- 
aculous and  incredible  perfection  of  Mildred  Claridge. 

"I  wonder  what  you  think  of  me?  I  wonder  if  you 
ever  think  of  me?"  The  thought  careered  like  a  caged 
squirrel,  now  that  he  walked  through  autumn  woods 
toward  her  home. 

"I  wish  that  you  were  not  so  sensible.  I  wish  your 
mother  were  not  even  more  so.  The  woman  reeks 
with  common-sense,  and  knows  that  to  be  common 
is  to  be  unanswerable.  I  wish  that  a  dispute  with  her 

220 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

were  not  upon  a  par  with  remonstrance  against  an 
earthquake." 

He  lighted  a  fresh  cheroot.  "And  so  you  are  to 
marry  the  Brudenel  title  and  bank  account,  with  this 
particular  Heleigh  thrown  in  as  a  dividend.  And 
why  not?  the  estate  is  considerable;  the  man  who 
encumbers  it  is  sincere  in  his  adoration  of  you;  and, 
chief  of  all,  Lady  John  Claridge  has  decreed  it.  And 
your  decision  in  any  matter  has  always  lain  between 
the  claws  of  that  steel-armored  crocodile  who,  by  some 
miracle,  is  your  mother.  Oh,  what  a  universe!  were 
I  of  hasty  temperament  I  would  cry  out,  Tut  and 
go  to  I" 

This  was  the  moment  which  the  man  hid  in  the 
thicket  selected  as  most  fit  for  intervention  through 
the  assistance  of  a  dueling  pistol.  Paul  Vanderhof- 
fen  reeled,  his  face  bewilderment.  His  hands  clutched 
toward  the  sky,  as  if  in  anguish  he  grasped  at  some 
invisible  support,  and  he  coughed  once  or  twice.  It 
was  rather  horrible.  Then  Vanderhoffen  shivered  as 
though  he  were  very  cold,  and  tottered  and  collapsed 
in  the  parched  roadway. 

A  slinking  man  whose  lips  were  gray  and  could 
not  refrain  from  twitching  came  toward  the  limp 

heap.  "So !"  said  the  man.  One  of  his  hands 

went  to  the  tutor's  breast,  and  in  his  left  hand  dangled 
a  second  dueling  pistol.  He  had  thrown  away  the 
other  after  firing  it. 

"And  so 1"  observed  Paul  Vanderhoffen.  Aft- 
erward there  was  a  momentary  tussle.  Now  Paul 

221 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


Vanderhoffen  stood  erect  and  flourished  the  loaded 
pistol.  "If  you  go  on  this  way,"  he  said,  with  some 
severity,  "you  will  presently  be  neither  loved  nor 
respected.  There  was  a  time,  though,  when  you  were 
an  excellent  shot,  Herr  Heinrich  Obendorf." 

"I  had  my  orders,  highness,"  said  the  other  stolidly. 

"Oh  yes,  of  course,"  Paul  Vanderhoffen  answered. 
"You  had  your  orders — from  Augustus!"  He  seemed 
to  think  of  something  very  far  away.  He  smiled,  with 
quizzically  narrowed  eyes  such  as  you  may  yet  see  in 
Raeburn's  portrait  of  the  man.  "I  was  remembering, 
oddly  enough,  that  elm  just  back  of  the  Canova  Pa- 
vilion— as  it  was  twenty  years  ago.  I  managed  to 
scramble  up  it,  but  Augustus  could  not  follow  me 
because  he  had  such  short  fat  little  legs.  He  was  so 
proud  of  what  I  had  done  that  he  insisted  on  telling 
everybody — and  afterward  we  had  oranges  for  lunch- 
eon, I  remember,  and  sucked  them  through  bits  of 
sugar.  It  is  not  fair  that  you  must  always  remember 
and  always  love  that  boy  who  played  with  you  when 
you  were  little — after  he  has  grown  up  to  be  another 
person.  Eh  no!  youth  passes,  but  all  its  memories 
of  unimportant  things  remain  with  you  and  are  less 
kind  than  any  self-respecting  viper  would  be.  De- 
cidedly, it  is  not  fair,  and  some  earnest-minded  per- 
son ought  to  write  to  his  morning  paper  about  it.  ... 
I  think  that  is  the  reason  I  am  being  a  sentimental 
fool,"  Paul  Vanderhoffen  explained. 

Then  his  teeth  clicked.  "Get  on,  my  man,"  he  said. 
"Do  not  remain  too  near  to  ntte,  because  there  was  a 

222 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

time  when  I  loved  your  employer  quite  as  much  as 
you  do.  This  fact  is  urging  me  to  dangerous  ends. 
Yes,  it  is  prompting  me,  even  while  I  talk  with  you, 
to  give  you  a  lesson  in  marksmanship,  my  incon- 
veniently faithful  Heinrich." 

He  shrugged.  He  lighted  a  cheroot  with  hands 
whose  tremblings,  he  devoutly  hoped,  were  not  ap- 
parent, for  Prince  Fribble  had  been  ashamed  to  mani- 
fest a  sincere  emotion  of  any  sort,  and  Paul  Vander- 
hoffen  shared  as  yet  this  foible. 

"Oh  Brutus!  Ravaillac!  Damiens!"  he  drawled. 
"O  general  compendium  of  misguided  aspirations!  do 
be  a  duck  and  get  along  with  you.  And  I  would  run 
as  hard  as  I  could,  if  I  were  you,  for  it  is  war  now,, 
and  you  and  I  are  not  on  the  same  side." 

Paul  Vanderhoffen  paused  a  hundred  yards  or  so 
from  this  to  shake  his  head.  "Come,  come!  I  have 
lost  so  much  that  I  cannot  afford  to  throw  my  good 
temper  into  the  bargain.  To  endure  with  a  grave 
face  this  perfectly  unreasonable  universe  wherein 
destiny  has  locked  me  is  undoubtedly  meritorious ;  but 
to  bustle  about  it  like  a  caged  canary,  and  not  ever 
to  falter  in  your  hilarity,  is  heroic.  Let  us,  by  all 
means,  not  consider  the  obdurate  if  gilded  barriers, 
but  rather  the  lettuce  and  the  cuttle-bone.  I  have  my 
choice  between  becoming  a  corpse  or  a  convict — a 
convict?  ah,  undoubtedly  a  convict,  sentenced  to 
serve  out  a  life-term  in  a  cess-pool  of  castby  super- 


stitions." 


223 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


He  smiled  now  over  Paul  Vanderhoffen's  rage. 
"Since  the  situation  is  tragic,  let  us  approach  it  in 
an  appropriate  spirit  of  frivolity.  My  circum- 
stances bully  me.  And  I  succumb  to  irrationality,  as 
rational  persons  invariably  end  by  doing.  But,  oh, 
dear  me!  oh,  Osiris,  Termagaunt,  and  Zeus!  to  think 
there  are  at  least  a  dozen  other  ne'er-do-wells  alive 
who  would  prefer  to  make  a  mess  of  living  as  a 
grand-duke  rather  than  as  a  scribbler  in  Grub  Street! 
Well,  well!  the  jest  is  not  of  my  contriving,  and  the 
one  concession  a  sane  man  will  never  yield  the  uni- 
verse is  that  of  considering  it  seriously." 

And  he  strode  on,  resolved  to  be  Prince  Fribble 
to  the  last 

"Frivolity,"  he  said,  "is  the  smoked  glass  through 
which  a  civilized  person  views  the  only  world  he  has 
to  live  in.  For,  otherwise,  he  could  not  presume  to 
look  upon  such  coruscations  of  insanity  and  remain 
unblinded." 

This  heartened  him,  as  a  rounded  phrase  will  do 
the  best  of  us.  But  by-and-bye, 

"Frivolity,"  he  groaned,  "is  really  the  cheap  mask 
incompetence  claps  on  when  haled  before  a  mirror." 

And  at  Leamington  Manor  he  found  her  strolling 
upon  the  lawn.  It  was  an  ordered,  lovely  scene, 
steeped  now  in  the  tranquillity  of  evening.  Above, 
the  stars  were  losing  diffidence.  Below,  and  within 
arms'  reach,  Mildred  Claridge  was  treading  the  same 
planet  on  which  he  fidgeted  and  stuttered. 
224 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

Something  in  his  heart  snapped  like  a  fiddle-string, 
and  he  was  entirely  aware  of  this  circumstance.  As 
to  her  eyes,  teeth,  coloring,  complexion,  brows,  height 
and  hair,  it  is  needless  to  expatiate.  The  most  pains- 
taking inventory  of  these  chattels  would  necessarily 
be  misleading,  because  the  impression  which  they  con- 
veyed to  him  was  that  of  a  bewildering,  but  not  dis- 
tasteful, transfiguration  of  the  universe,  apt  as  a  fan- 
fare at  the  entrance  of  a  queen. 

But  he  would  be  Prince  Fribble  to  the  last.  And 
so,  "Wait  just  a  moment,  please,"  he  said,  "I  want 
to  harrow  up  your  soul  and  freeze  your  blood." 

Wherewith  he  suavely  told  her  everything  about 
Paul  Vanderhoffen's  origin  and  the  alternatives  now 
offered  him,  and  she  listened  without  comment. 

"Ai!  ai!"  young  Vanderhoffen  perorated;  "the 
situation  is  complete.  I  have  not  the  least  desire  to  be 
Grand-Duke  of  Saxe-Kesselberg.  It  is  too  abom- 
inably tedious.  But,  if  I  do  not  join  in  with  Desma- 
rets,  who  has  the  guy-ropes  of  a  restoration  well  in 
hand,  I  must  inevitably  be — removed,  as  the  knave 
phrases  it.  For  as  long  as  I  live,  I  will  be  an  in- 
superable barrier  between  Augustus  and  his  Sophia. 
Otototoi!"  he  wailed,  with  a  fine  tone  of  tragedy, 
"the  one  impossible  achievement  -  in  my  life  has  al- 
ways been  to  convince  anybody  that  it  was  mine  to 
dispose  of  as  I  elected!" 

"Oh,  man  proposes "  she  began,  cryptically. 

Then  he  deliberated,  and  sulkily  submitted :  "But 
I  may  not  even  propose  to  abdicate.  Augustus  has 

225 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


put  himself  upon  sworn  record  as  an  eye-witness  of 
my  hideous  death.  And  in  consequence  I  might  keep 
on  abdicating  from  now  to  the  crack  of  doom,  and 
the  only  course  left  open  to  him  would  be  to  treat 
me  as  an  impostor." 

She  replied,  with  emphasis,  "I  think  your  cousin 
is  a  beast!" 

"Ah,  but  the  madman  is  in  love,'*  he  pleaded.  "You 
should  not  judge  poor  masculinity  in  such  a  state 
by  any  ordinary  standards.  Oh  really,  you  don't 
know  the  Princess  Sophia.  She  is,  in  sober  truth, 
the  nicest  person  who  was  ever  born  a  princess.  Why, 
she  had  actually  made  a  mock  of  even  that  handicap, 
for  ordinarily  it  is  as  disastrous  to  feminine  appear- 
ance as  writing  books.  And,  oh,  Lord!  they  will  be 
marrying  her  to  me,  if  Desmarets  and  I  win  out." 
Thus  he  forlornly  ended. 

"The  designing  minx!"  Miss  Claridge  said,  dis- 
tinctly. 

"Now,  gracious  lady,  do  be  just  a  cooing  pigeon 
and  grant  that  when  men  are  in  love  they  are  not  any 
more  encumbered  by  abstract  notions  about  honor 
than  if  they  had  been  womanly  from  birth.  Come, 
let's  be  lyrical  and  open-minded,"  he  urged;  and  he 
added,  "No,  either  you  are  in  love  or  else  you  are 
not  in  love.  And  nothing  else  will  matter  either  way. 
You  see,  if  men  and  women  had  been  primarily  de- 
signed to  be  rational  creatures,  there  would  be  no 
explanation  for  their  being  permitted  to  continue  in 
226 


A      PRINCESS     OF      GRUB     STREET 

existence,"  he  lucidly  explained.  "And  to  have  grasped 
this  fact  is  the  pith  of  all  wisdom." 

"Oh,  I  am  very  wise."  A  glint  of  laughter  shone 
in  her  eyes.  "I  would  claim  to  be  another  Pythoness 
if  only  it  did  not  sound  so  snaky  and  wriggling.  So, 
from  my  trident — or  was  it  a  Triton  they  used  to  stand 
on? — I  announce  that  you  and  your  Augustus  are 
worrying  yourselves  gray-headed  over  an  idiotically 
simple  problem.  Now,  I  disposed  of  it  offhand  when 
I  said,  'Man  proposes.' ' 

He  seemed  to  be  aware  of  some  one  who  from  a 
considerable  distance  was  inquiring  her  reasons  for 
this  statement. 

"Because  in  Saxe-Kesselberg,  as  in  all  other  Ger- 
man states,  when  a  prince  of  the  reigning  house  mar- 
ries outside  of  the  mediatized  nobility  he  thereby  for- 
feits his  right  of  succession.  It  has  been  done  any 
number  of  times.  Why,  don't  you  see,  Mr.  Vander- 
hoffen?  Conceding  you  ever  do  such  a  thing,  your 
cousin  Augustus  would  become  at  once  the  legal  heir. 
So  you  must  marry.  It  is  the  only  way,  I  think,  to 
save  you  from  regal  incarceration  and  at  the  same 
time  to  reassure  the  Prince  of  Lueminster — that  crea- 
ture's father — that  you  have  hot,  and  never  can  have, 
any  claim  which  would  hold  good  in  law.  Then  Duke 
Augustus  could  peaceably  espouse  his  Sophia  and 
go  on  reigning — And,  by  the  way,  I  have  seen  her 

picture  often,  and  if  that  is  what  you  call  beauty " 

Miss  Claridge  did  not  speak  this  last  at  least  with 
any  air  of  pointing  out  the  self-evident. 

227 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


And,  "I  believe,"  he  replied,  "that  all  this  is  ac- 
tually happening.  I  might  have  known  fate  meant  to 
glut  her  taste  for  irony/' 

"But  don't  you  see?  You  have  only  to  marry  any- 
body outside  of  the  higher  nobility — and  just  as  a 

makeshift "    She  had  drawn  closer  in  the  urgency 

of  her  desire  to  help  him.  An  infinite  despair  and 
mirth  as  well  was  kindled  by  her  nearness.  And  the 
man  was  insane  and  dimly  knew  as  much. 

And  so,  "I  see,"  he  answered.  "But,  as  it  happens, 
I  cannot  marry  any  woman,  because  I  love  a  particular 
woman.  At  least,  I  suppose  she  isn't  anything  but 
just  a  woman.  That  statement,"  he  announced,  "is 
a  formal  tribute  paid  by  what  I  call  my  intellect  to 
what  the  vulgar  call  the  probabilities.  The  rest  of  me 
has  no  patience  whatever  with  such  idiotic  blasphemy." 

She  said,  "I  think  I  understand."  And  this  sur- 
prised him,  coming  as  it  did  from  her  whom  he  had 
always  supposed  to  be  the  fiancee  of  Lord  Brudenel's 
title  and  bank-account. 

"And,  well!" — he  waved  his  hands — "either  as 
tutor  or  as  grand-duke,  this  woman  is  unattainable, 
because  she  has  been  far  too  carefully  reared" — and 
here  he  frenziedly  thought  of  that  terrible  matron 
whom,  as  you  know,  he  had  irreverently  likened  to  a 
crocodile — "either  to  marry  a  pauper  or  to  be  con- 
tented with  a  left-handed  alliance.  And  I  love  her. 
And  so" — he  shrugged — "there  is  positively  nothing 
left  to  do  save  sit  upon  the  ground  and  tell  sad  stories 
of  the  deaths  of  kings." 
228 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

She  said,  "Oh,  and  you  mean  it !  You  are  speaking 
the  plain  truth !"  A  change  had  come  into  her  lovely 
face  which  would  have  made  him  think  it  even  lovelier 
had  not  that  contingency  been  beyond  conception. 

And  Mildred  Claridge  said,  "It  is  not  fair  for 
dreamers  such  as  you  to  let  a  woman  know  just  how 
he  loves  her.  That  is  not  wooing.  It  is  bullying." 

His  lips  were  making  a  variety  of  irrational  noises. 
And  he  was  near  to  her.  Also  he  realized  that  he 
had  never  known  how  close  akin  were  fear  and  joy, 
so  close  the  two  could  mingle  thus,  and  be  quite  un- 
distinguishable.  And  then  repentance  smote  him. 

"I  am  contemptible !"  he  groaned.  "I  had  no  right 
to  trouble  you  with  my  insanities.  Indeed  I  had  not 
ever  meant  to  let  you  guess  how  mad  I  was.  But 
always  I  have  evaded  my  responsibilities.  So  I  remain 
Prince  Fribble  to  the  last." 

"Oh,  but  I  knew,  I  have  always  known. "  She 
held  her  eyes  away  from  him.  "And  I  wrote  to  Lord 
Brudenel  only  yesterday  releasing  him  from  his  en- 
gagement." 

And  now  without  uncertainty  or  haste  Paul  Van- 
derhoffen  touched  her  cheek  and  raised  her  face,  so 
that  he  saw  it  plainly  in  the  rising  twilight,  and  all 
its  wealth  of  tenderness  newborn.  And  what  he  saw 
there  frightened  him. 

For  the  girl  loved  him!  He  felt  himself  to  be,  as 
most  men  do,  a  swindler  when  he  comprehended  this 
preposterous  fact;  and,  in  addition,  he  thought  of 
divers  happenings,  such  as  shipwrecks,  holocausts  and 

229 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


earthquakes,  which  might  conceivably  have  appalled 
him,  and  understood  that  he  would  never  in  his  life 
face  any  sense  of  terror  as  huge  as  was  this  present 
sweet  and  illimitable  awe. 

And  then  he  said,  "You  know  that  what  I  hunger 
for  is  impossible.  There  are  so  many  little  things,  like 
common-sense,  to  be  considered.  For  this  is  just  a 
matter  which  concerns  you  and  Paul  Vanderhoffen — 
a  literary  hack,  a  stuttering  squeak-voiced  ne'er-do- 
well,  with  an  acquired  knack  for  scribbling  verses  that 
are  feeble-minded  enough  for  Annuals  and  Keepsake 
Books,  and  so  fetch  him  an  occasional  guinea.  For, 
my  dear,  the  verses  I  write  of  my  own  accord  are  not 
sufficiently  genteel  to  be  vended  in  Paternoster  Row; 
they  smack  too  dangerously  of  human  intelligence.  So 
I  am  compelled,  perforce,  to  scribble  such  jingles  as 
I  am  ashamed  to  read,  because  I  must  write  some- 
thing. .  .  ."  Paul  Vanderhoffen  shrugged,  and  con- 
tinued, in  tones  more  animated:  "There  will  be  no 
talk  of  any  grand-duke.  Instead,  there  will  be  col- 
umns of  denunciation  and  tittle-tattle  in  every  news- 
paper— quite  as  if  Ormskirk's  granddaughter  had  run 
away  with  a  footman.  And  you  will  very  often  think 
wistfully  of  Lord  Brudenel's  fine  house  when  your  only 
title  is — well,  Princess  of  Grub  Street,  and  your  realm 
is  a  garret.  And  for  a  while  even  to-morrow's  break- 
fast will  be  a  problematical  affair.  It  is  true  Lord 
Lansdowne  has  promised  me  a  registrarship  in  the 
Admiralty  Court,  and  I  do  not  think  he  will  fail  me. 
But  that  will  give  us  barely  enough  to  live  on — with 
230 


A     PRINCESS     OF     GRUB     STREET 

strict  economy,  which  is  a  virtue  that  neither  of  us 
knows  anything  about.  I  beg  you  to  remember  that — 
you  who  have  been  used  to  every  luxury!  you  who 
really  were  devised  that  you  might  stand  beside  an 
emperor  and  set  tasks  for  him.  In  fine,  you 
know " 

And  Mildred  Claridge  said,  "I  know  that,  quite 
as  I  observed,  man  proposes — when  he  has  been  suf- 
ficiently prodded  by  some  one  who,  because  she  is  an 
idiot — And  that  is  why  I  am  not  blushing — very 
much " 

"Your  coloring  is  not — repellent."  His  high-pitched 
pleasant  voice,  in  spite  of  him,  shook  now  with  more 
than  its  habitual  suggestion  of  a  stutter.  "What  have 
you  done  to  me,  my  dear?"  he  said.  ."Why  can't  I 
jest  at  this  ...  as  I  have  always  done  at  every- 
thing  ?" 

"Boy,  boy!"  she  said;  "laughter  is  excellent.  And 
wisdom  too  is  excellent.  Only  I  think  that  you  have 
laughed  too  much,  and  I  have  been  too  shrewd — But 
now  I  know  that  it  is  better  to  be  a  princess  in  Grub 
Street  than  to  figure  at  Ranelagh  as  a  good-hearted 
fool's  latest  purchase.  For  Lord  Brudenel  is  really 
very  good-natured,"  she  argued,  "and  I  did  like  him, 
and  mother  was  so  set  upon  it — and  he  was  rich — and 
I  honestly  thought " 

"And  now?"  he  said. 

"And  now  I  know,"  she  answered  happily. 

They  looked  at  each  other  for  a  little  while.  Then 
he  took  her  hand,  prepared  in  turn  for  self-denial. 

231 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


"The  Household  Review  wants  me  to  'do'  a  series 
on  famous  English  bishops,"  he  reported,  humbly. 
"I  had  meant  to  refuse,  because  it  would  all  have  to 
be  dull  High-Church  twaddle.  And  the  English  Gen- 
tleman wants  some  rather  outrageous  lying  done  in 
defense  of  the  Corn  Laws.  You  would  not  despise 
me  too  much — would  you,  Mildred? — if  I  undertook 
it  now.  I  really  have  no  choice.  And  there  is  plenty 
of  hackwork  of  that  sort  available  to  keep  us  going 
until  more  solvent  days,  when  I  shall  have  opportu- 
nity to  write  something  quite  worthy  of  you." 

"For  the  present,  dear,  it  would  be  much  more 
sensible,  I  think,  to  'do'  the  bishops  and  the  Corn 
Laws.  You  see,  that  kind  of  thing  pays  very  well, 
and  is  read  by  the  best  people;  whereas  poetry,  of 
course — But  you  can  always  come  back  to  the  verse- 
making,  you  know " 

"If  you  ever  let  me,"  he  said,  with  a  flash  of 
prescience.  "And  I  don't  believe  you  mean  to  let 
me.  You  are  your  mother's  daughter,  after  all! 
Nefarious  woman,  you  are  planning,  already,  to  make 
a  responsible  member  of  society  out  of  me!  and  you 
will  do  it,  ruthlessly!  Such  is  to  be  Prince  Fribble's 
actual  burial — in  his  own  private  carriage,  with  a  re- 
ceipted tax-bill  in  his  pocket !" 

"What  nonsense  you  poets  talk !"  the  girl  observed. 
But  to  him,  forebodingly,  that  familiar  statement 
seemed  to  lack  present  application. 


232 


THE  LADY  OF  ALL  OUR   DREAMS 


"In  JOHN  CHARTERIS  appeared  a  man  with  an  in- 
born sense  of  the  supreme  interest  and  the  overwhelm- 
ing emotional  and  spiritual  relevancy  of  human  life  as  it 
is  actually  and  obscurely  lived;  a  man  with  unmistakable 
creative  impulses  and  potentialities;  a  man  who,  had  he 
lived  in  a  more  mature  and  less  self-deluding  community 
— a  community  that  did  not  so  rigorously  confine  its  in- 
terest in  facts  to  business,  and  limit  its  demands  upon  art 
to  the  supplying  of  illusions — might  humbly  and  patiently 
have  schooled  his  gifts  to  the  service  of  his  vision.  .  .  . 
As  it  was,  he  accepted  defeat  and  compromised  half- 
heartedly with  commercialism/' 


And  men  unborn  will  read  of  Heloise, 
And  Ruth,  and  Rosamond,  and  Semele, 
When  none  remembers  your  name's  melody 

Or  rhymes  your  name,  enregistered  with  these. 

And  will  my  name  wake  moods  as  amorous 

As  that  of  Abelard  or  Launcelot 
Arouses?  be  recalled  when  Pyramus 

And  Tristram  are  unrhymed  of  and  forgot? — 
Time's  laughter  answers,  who  accords  to  us 

More  gracious  fields,  wherein  we  harvest — what? 


THE  LADY  OF  ALL  OUR  DREAMS 


OUR  distinguished  alumnus,"  after  being  duly 
presented  as  such,  had  with  vivacity  delivered 
much  the  usual  sort  of  Commencement  Ad- 
dress. Yet  John  Charteris  was  in  reality  a  trifle 
fagged. 

The  afternoon  train  had  been  vexatiously  late.  The 
little  novelist  had  found  it  tedious  to  interchange  in- 
anities with  the  committee  awaiting  him  at  the  Pull- 
man steps.  Nor  had  it  amused  him  to  huddle  into 
evening-dress,  and  hasten  through  a  perfunctory  sup- 
per in  order  to  reassure  his  audience  at  half-past  eight 
precisely  as  to  the  unmitigated  delight  of  which  he 
was  now  conscious. 

Nevertheless,  he  alluded  with  enthusiasm  to  the 
arena  of  life,  to  the  dependence  of  America's  destiny 
upon  the  younger  generation,  to  the  enviable  part 
King's  College  had  without  exception  played  in  his- 
tory, and  he  depicted  to  Fairhaven  the  many  glories 
of  Fairhaven — past,  present  and  approaching — in 
superlatives  that  would  hardly  have  seemed  inade- 
quate if  applied  to  Paradise.  His  oration,  in  short, 

235 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


was  of  a  piece  with  the  amiable  bombast  that  the  col- 
lege students  and  Fairhaven  at  large  were  accustomed 
to  applaud  at  every  Finals — the  sort  of  linguistic  de- 
bauch that  John  Charteris  himself  remembered  to 
have  applauded  as  an  undergraduate  more  years  ago 
than  he  cared  to  acknowledge. 

Pauline  Romeyne  had  sat  beside  him  then — yonder, 
upon  the  fourth  bench  from  the  front,  where  now  an- 
other boy  with  painstakingly  plastered  hair  was  clap- 
ping hands.  There  was  a  girl  on  the  right  of  this 
boy,  too.  There  naturally  would  be.  Mr.  Charteris 
as  he  sat  down  was  wondering  if  Pauline  was  within 
reach  of  his  voice?  and  if  she  were,  what  was  her  sur- 
name nowadays  ? 

Then  presently  the  exercises  were  concluded,  and 
the  released  auditors  arose  with  an  outwelling  noise 
of  multitudinous  chatter,  of  shuffling  feet,  of  rustling 
programs.  Many  of  Mr.  Charteris'  audience,  though, 
were  contending  against  the  general  human  out- 
flow and  pushing  toward  the  platform,  for  Fairhaven 
was  proud  of  John  Charteris  now  that  his  colorful 
tales  had  risen,  from  the  semi-oblivion  of  being  cher- 
ished merely  by  people  who  cared  seriously  for  beau- 
tiful things,  to  the  distinction  of  being  purchasable  in 
railway  stations;  so  that,  in  consequence,  Fairhaven 
wished  both  to  congratulate  him  and  to  renew 
acquaintanceship. 

He,  standing  there,  alert  and  quizzical,  found  it  odd 
to  note  how  unfamiliar  beaming  faces  climbed  out 
of  the  hurly-burly  of  retreating  backs,  to  say,  "Don't 

236 


THE  LADY  OF  ALL  OUR  DREAMS 

you  remember  me?  I'm  so-and-so."  These  were  the 
people  whom  he  had  lived  among  once,  and  some  of 
these  had  once  been  people  whom  he  loved.  Now 
there  was  hardly  any  one  whom  at  a  glance  he  would 
have  recognized. 

Nobody  guessed  as  much.  He  was  adjudged  to 
be  delightful,  cordial,  "and  not  a  bit  stuck-up,  not 
spoiled  at  all,  you  know."  To  appear  this  was  the 
talisman  with  which  he  banteringly  encountered  the 
universe. 

But  John  Charteris,  as  has  been  said,  was  in  reality 
a  trifle  fagged.  When  everybody  had  removed  to 
the  Gymnasium,  where  the  dancing  was  to  be,  and 
he  had  been  delightful  there,  too,  for  a  whole  half- 
hour  he  grasped  with  avidity  at  his  first  chance  to 
slip  away,  and  did  so  under  cover  of  a  riotous  two- 
step. 

He  went  out  upon  the  Campus. 

He  found  this  lawn  untenanted,  unless  you  chose 
to  count  the  marble  figure  of  Lord  Penniston,  made 
aerial  and  fantastic  by  the  moonlight,  standing  as  if 
it  were  on  guard  over  the  College.  Mr.  Charteris 
chose  to  count  him.  Whimsically,  Mr.  Charteris  re- 
flected that  this  battered  nobleman's  was  the  one  fa- 
miliar face  he  had  exhumed  in  all  Fairhaven.  And 
what  a  deal  of  mirth  and  folly,  too,  the  old  fellow 
must  have  witnessed  during  his  two  hundred  and  odd 
years  of  sentry-duty!  On  warm,  clear  nights  like 
this,  in  particular,  when  by  ordinary  there  were  only 
couples  on  the  Campus,  each  couple  discreetly  remote 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


from  any  of  the  others.  Then  Penniston  would  be 
aware  of  most  portentous  pauses  (which  a  delectable 
and  lazy  conference  of  leaves  made  eloquent)  because 
of  many  unfinished  sentences.  "Oh,  you  know  what 
I  mean,  dear !"  one  would  say  as  a  last  resort.  And 
she — why,  bless  her  heart !  of  course,  she  always  did. 
.  .  .  Heigho,  youth's  was  a  pleasant  lunacy.  .  .  . 

Thus  Charteris  reflected,  growing  drowsy.  She 
said,  "You  spoke  very  well  to-night.  Is  it  too  late 
for  congratulations?" 

Turning,  Mr.  Charteris  remarked,  "As  you  are  per- 
fectly aware,  all  that  I  vented  was  just  a  deal  of  skim- 
ble-scamble  stuff,  a  verbal  syllabub  of  balderdash.  No, 
upon  reflection,  I  think  I  should  rather  describe  it  as 
a  conglomeration  of  piffle,  patriotism  and  pyrotechnics. 
Well,  Madam  Do-as-you-would-be-done-by,  what 
would  you  have?  You  must  give  people  what  they 
want." 

It  was  characteristic  that  he  faced  Pauline  Romeyne 
— or  was  it  still  Romeyne  ?  he  wondered — precisely  as 
if  it  had  been  fifteen  minutes,  rather  than  as  many 
years,  since  they  had  last  spoken  together. 

"Must  one?"  she  asked.  "Oh,  yes,  I  know  you  have 
always  thought  that,  but  I  do  not  quite  see  the  neces- 
sity of  it." 

She  sat  upon  the  bench  beside  Lord  Penniston's 
square  marble  pedestal.  "And  all  the  while  you 
spoke  I  was  thinking  of  those  Saturday  nights  when 
your  name  was  up  for  an  oration  or  a  debate  before 

238 


THE     LADY     OF     ALL     OUR     DREAMS 

the  Eclectics,  and  you  would  stay  away  and  pay  the 
fine  rather  than  brave  an  audience." 

"The  tooth  of  Time,"  he  reminded  her,  "has  since 
then  written  wrinkles  on  my  azure  brow.  The  years 
slip  away  fugacious,  and  Time  that  brings  forth  her 
children  only  to  devour  them  grins  most  hellishly,  for 
Time  changes  all  things  and  cultivates  even  in  herself 
an  appreciation  of  irony, — and,  therefore,  why 
shouldn't  I  have  changed  a  trifle  ?  You  wouldn't  have 
me  put  on  exhibition  as  a  lusus  nature?" 

"Oh,  but  I  wish  you  had  not  altered  so  entirely!" 
Pauline  sighed. 

"At  least,  you  haven't,"  he  declared.  "Of  course, 
I  would  be  compelled  to  say  so,  anyhow.  But  in  this 
happy  instance  courtesy  and  veracity  come  skipping 
arm-in-arm  from  my  elated  lips."  And,  indeed,  it 
seemed  to  him  that  Pauline  was  marvelously  little  al- 
tered. "I  wonder  now,"  he  said,  and  cocked  his  head, 
"I  wonder  now  whose  wife  I  am  talking  to?" 

"No,  Jack,  I  never  married,"  she  said  quietly. 

"It  is  selfish  of  me,"  he  said,  in  the  same  tone,  "but 
1  am  glad  of  that." 

And  so  they  sat  a  while,  each  thinking. 

"I  wonder,"  said  Pauline,  with  that  small  plaintive 
voice  which  Charteris  so  poignantly  remembered, 
"whether  it  is  always  like  this?  Oh,  do  the  Overlords 
of  Life  and  Death  always  provide  some  obstacle  to 
prevent  what  all  of  us  have  known  in  youth  was  pos- 
sible from  ever  coming  true?" 

239 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


And  again  there  was  a  pause  which  a  delectable 
and  lazy  conference  of  leaves  made  eloquent. 

"I  suppose  it  is  because  they  know  that  if  it  ever 
did  come  true,  we  would  be  gods  like  them."  The 
ordinary  associates  of  John  Charteris,  most  certainly, 
would  not  have  suspected  him  to  be  the  speaker.  "So 
they  contrive  the  obstacle,  or  else  they  send  false 
dreams — out  of  the  gates  of  horn — and  make  the  path 
smooth,  very  smooth,  so  that  two  dreamers  may  not 
be  hindered  on  their  way  to  the  divorce-courts." 

"Yes,  they  are  jealous  gods!  oh,  and  ironical  gods 
also!  They  grant  the  Dream,  and  chuckle  while  they 
grant  it,  I  think,  because  they  know  that  later  they 
will  be  bringing  their  playthings  face  to  face — each 
married,  fat,  inclined  to  optimism,  very  careful  of 
decorum,  and  perfectly  indifferent  to  each  other.  And 
then  they  get  their  fore-planned  mirth,  these  Overlords 
of  Life  and  Death.  'We  gave  you/  they  chuckle,  'the 
loveliest  and  greatest  thing  infinity  contains.  And 
you  bartered  it  because  of  a  clerkship  or  a  lying  maxim 
or  perhaps  a  finger-ring/  I  suppose  that  they  must 
laugh  a  great  deal." 

"Eh,  what?  But  then  you  never  married?"  For 
masculinity  in  argument  starts  with  the  word  it  has 
found  distasteful. 

"Why,  no." 

"Nor  I."  And  his  tone  implied  that  the  two  facts 
conjoined  proved  much. 

"Miss  Willoughby ?"  she  inquired. 

Now,  how  in  heaven's  name,  could  a  cloistered  Fair- 
240 


THE   LADY  OF  ALL  OUR  DREAMS 

haven  have  surmised  his  intention  of  proposing  on  the 
first  convenient  opportunity  to  handsome,  well-to-do 
Anne  Willoughby?  He  shrugged  his  wonder  off. 
"Oh,  people  will  talk,  you  know.  Let  any  man  once 
find  a  woman  has  a  tongue  in  her  head,  and  the  stage- 
direction  is  always  'Enter  Rumor,  painted  full  of 
tongues/  " 

Pauline  did  not  appear  to  have  remarked  his  pro- 
test. "Yes, — in  the  end  you  will  marry  her.  And  her 
money  will  help,  just  as  you  have  contrived  to  make 
everything  else  help,  toward  making  John  Charteris 
comfortable.  She  is  not  very  clever,  but  she  will 
always  worship  you,  and  so  you  two  will  not  prove 
uncongenial.  That  is  your  real  tragedy,  if  I  could 
make  you  comprehend." 

"So  I  am  going  to  develop  into  a  pig,"  he  said, 
with  relish, — "a  lovable,  contented,  unambitious  por- 
cine, who  is  alike  indifferent  to  the  Tariff,  the  im- 
portance of  Equal  Suffrage  and  the  market-price  of 
hams,  for  all  that  he  really  cares  about  is  to  have  his 
sty  as  comfortable  as  may  be  possible.  That  is  ex- 
actly what  I  am  going  to  develop  into, — now,  isn't  it?" 
And  John  Charteris,  sitting,  as  was  his  habitual  fash- 
ion, with  one  foot  tucked  under  him,  laughed  cheer- 
ily. Oh,  just  to  be  alive  (he  thought)  was  ample 
cause  for  rejoicing !  and  how  deliciously  her  eyes,  alert 
with  slumbering  fires,  were  peering  through  the  moon- 
made  shadows  of  her  brows! 

"Well !  something  of  the  sort."  Pauline  was 

smiling,  but  restrainedly,  and  much  as  a  woman  does 

241 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


in  condoning  the  naughtiness  of  her  child.    "And,  oh, 

if  only " 

"Why,  precisely.  'If  only!'  quotha.  Why,  there 
you  word  the  key-note,  you  touch  the  cornerstone,  you 
ruthlessly  illuminate  the  mainspring,  of  an  intractable 
unfeeling  universe.  For  instance,  if  only 

You  were  the  Empress  of  Ay  re  and  Skye, 

And  I  were  Ahkond  of  Kongf 
We  could  dine  every  day  on  apple-pie, 
And  peddle  potatoes,  and  sleep  in  a  sty. 
And  people  would  say  when  we  came  to  die, 

They  never  did  anything  wrong.' 

But,  as  it  is,  our  epitaphs  will  probably  be  nothing  of 
the  sort  So  that  there  lurks,  you  see,  much  virtue 
in  this  'if  only/  " 

Impervious  to  nonsense,  she  asked,  "And  have  I 
not  earned  the  right  to  lament  that  you  are  changed?" 

"I  haven't  robbed  more  than  six  churches  up  to 
date,"  he  grumbled.  "What  would  you  have?" 

The  answer  came,  downright,  and,  as  he  knew, 
entirely  truthful :  "I  would  have  had  you  do  all  that 
you  might  have  done." 

But  he  must  needs  refine.  "Why,  no — you  would 
have  made  me  do  it,  wrung  out  the  last  drop.  You 
would  have  bullied  me  and  shamed  me  into  being  all 
that  I  might  have  been.  I  see  that  now."  He  spoke 
as  if  in  wonder,  with  quickening  speech.  "Pauline,  I 
haven't  been  entirely  not  worth  while.  Oh,  yes,  I 
242 


THE     LADY     OF     ALL     OUR     DREAMS 

know  1  I  know  I  haven't  written  five-act  tragedies 
which  would  be  immortal,  as  you  probably  expected 
me  to  do.  My  books  are  not  quite  the  books  I  was 
to  write  when  you  and  I  were  young.  But  I  have 
made  at  worst  some  neat,  precise  and  joyous  little  tales 
which  prevaricate  tenderly  about  the  universe  and  veil 
the  pettiness  of  human  nature  with  screens  of  verbal 
jewelWork.  It  is  not  the  actual  world  they  tell  about, 
but  a  vastly  superior  place  where  the  Dream  is  realized 
and  everything  which  in  youth  we  knew  was  possible 
comes  true.  It  is  a  world  we  have  all  glimpsed,  just 
once,  and  have  not  ever  entered,  and  have  not  ever 
forgotten.  So  people  like  my  little  tales.  ...  Do 
they  induce  delusions?  Oh,  well,  you  must  give  peo- 
ple what  they  want,  and  literature  is  a  vast  bazaar 
where  customers  come  to  purchase  everything  except 
mirrors." 

She  said  soberly,  "You  need  not  make  a  jest  of  it. 
It  is  not  ridiculous  that  you  write  of  beautiful  and 
joyous  things  because  there  was  a  time  when  living 
was  really  all  one  wonderful  adventure,  and  you  re- 
member it." 

"But,  oh,  my  dear,  my  dear!  such  glum  discussions 
are  so  sadly  out-of -place  on  such  a  night  as  this,"  he 
lamented.  "For  it  is  a  night  of  pearl-like  radiancies 
and  velvet  shadows  and  delicate  odors  and  big  friendly 
stars  that  promise  not  to  gossip,  whatever  happens.  It 
is  a  night  that  hungers,  and  all  its  undistinguishable 
little  sounds  are  voicing  the  night's  hunger  for  masks 
and  mandolins,  for  rope-ladders  and  balconies  and 

243 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


serenades.  It  is  a  night  ...  a  night  wherein  I  grate- 
fully remember  so  many  beautiful  sad  things  that  never 
happened  ...  to  John  Charteris,  yet  surely  happened 
once  upon  a  time  to  me  .  .  ." 

"I  think  that  I  know  what  it  is  to  remember — better 
than  you  do,  Jack.  But  what  do  you  remember?" 

"In  faith,  my  dear,  the  most  Bedlamitish  occur- 
rences !  It  is  a  night  that  breeds  deplorable  insanities, 
I  warn  you.  For  I  seem  to  remember  how  I  sat  some- 
where, under  a  peach-tree,  in  clear  autumn  weather, 
and  was  content ;  but  the  importance  had  all  gone  out 
of  things;  and  even  you  did  not  seem  very  important, 
hardly  worth  lying  to,  as  I  spoke  lightly  of  my  wasted 
love  for  you,  half  in  hatred,  and — yes,  still  half  in 
adoration.  For  you  were  there,  of  course.  And  I 
remember  how  I  came  to  you,  in  a  sinister  and  brightly 
lighted  place,  where  a  horrible,  staring  frail  old  man 
lay  dead  at  your  feet;  and  you  had  murdered  him; 
and  heaven  did  not  care,  and  we  were  old,  and  all  our 
lives  seemed  just  to  end  in  futile  tangle-work.  And, 
again,  I  remember  how  we  stood  alone,  with  visible 
death  crawling  lazily  toward  us,  as  a  big  sullen  sea 
rose  higher  and  higher ;  and  we  little  tinseled  creatures 
waited,  helpless,  trapped  and  yearning.  .  .  .  There  is 
a  boat  in  that  picture;  I  suppose  it  was  deeply  laden 
with  pirates  coming  to  slit  our  throats  from  ear  to 
ear.  I  have  forgotten  that  part,  but  I  remember  the 
tiny  spot  of  courtplaster  just  above  your  painted  lips. 
.  .  .  Such  are  the  jumbled  pictures.  They  are  bred 
of  brain-fag,  no  doubt ;  yet,  whatever  be  their  lineage," 
244 


THE     LADY     OF     ALL     OUR     DREAMS 

said  Charteris,  happily,  "they  render  glum  discussion 
and  platitudinous  moralizing  quite  out  of  the  question. 
So,  let's  pretend,  Pauline,  that  we  are  not  a  bit  more 
worldly-wise  than  those  youngsters  who  are  frisking 
yonder  in  the  Gymnasium — for,  upon  my  word,  I 
dispute  if  we  have  ever  done  anything  to  suggest  that 
we  are.  Don't  let's  be  cowed  a  moment  longer  by 
those  bits  of  paper  with  figures  on  them  which  our 
too-credulous  fellow-idiots  consider  to  be  the  only 
almanacs.  Let's  have  back  yesterday,  let's  tweak  the 
nose  of  Time  intrepidly."  Then  Charteris  caroled : 

"For  Yesterday!  for  Yesterday! 
I  cry  a  reward  for  a  Yesterday 
Now  lost  or  stolen  or  gone  astray, 
With  all  the  laughter  of  Yesterday !" 

"And  how  slight  a  loss  was  laughter,"  she  mur- 
mured— still  with  the  vague  and  gentle  eyes  of  a  day- 
dreamer — "as  set  against  all  that  we  never  earned 
in  youth,  and  so  will  never  earn." 

He  inadequately  answered  "Bosh!"  and  later,  "Do 
you  remember ?"  he  began. 

Yes,  she  remembered  that,  it  developed.  And  "Do 

you  remember ?"  she  in  turn  was  asking  later.  It 

was  to  seem  to  him  in  retrospection  that  neither  for 
the  next  half -hour  began  a  sentence  without  this  for- 
mula. It  was  as  if  they  sought  to  use  it  as  a  master- 
word  wherewith  to  reanimate  the  happinesses  and  sor- 
rows of  their  common  past,  and  as  if  they  found  the 

245 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


charm  was  potent  to  awaken  the  thin,  powerless 
ghosts  of  emotions  that  were  once  despotic.  For  it 
was  as  if  frail  shadows  and  half -caught  echoes  were 
all  they  could  evoke,  it  seemed  to  Charteris;  and  yet 
these  shadows  trooped  with  a  wild  grace,  and  the 
echoes  thrilled  him  with  the  sweet  and  piercing  sur- 
prise of  a  bird's  call  at  midnight  or  of  a  bugle  heard 
in  prison. 

Then  twelve  o'clock  was  heralded  by  the  College 
bell,  and  Pauline  arose  as  though  this  equable  deep- 
throated  interruption  of  the  music's  levity  had  been 
a  signal.  John  Charteris  saw  her  clearly  now;  and 
she  was  beautiful. 

"I  must  go.  You  will  not  ever  quite  forget  me, 
Jack.  Such  is  my  sorry  comfort."  It  seemed  to  Char- 
teris that  she  smiled  as  in  mockery,  and  yet  it  was  a 
very  tender  sort  of  derision.  "Yes,  you  have  made 
your  books.  You  have  done  what  you  most  desired 
to  do.  You  have  got  all  from  life  that  you  have  asked 
of  life.  Oh,  yes,  you  have  got  much  from  life.  One 
prize,  though,  Jack,  you  missed." 

He,  too,  had  risen,  quiet  and  perfectly  sure  of  him- 
self. "I  haven't  missed  it.  For  you  love  me." 

This  widened  her  eyes.  "Did  I  not  always  love 
you,  Jack?  Yes,  even  when  you  went  away  forever, 
and  there  were  no  letters,  and  the  days  were  long. 
Yes,  even  knowing  you,  I  loved  you,  John  Charteris.1' 

"Oh,  I  was  wrong,  all  wrong,"  he  cried;  "and  yet 
there  is  something  to  be  said  upon  the  other  side,  as 
always.  ..."  Now  Charteris  was  still  for  a  while. 
246 


THE  LADY  OF  ALL  OUR  DREAMS 

The  little  man's  chin  was  uplifted  so  that  it  was  toward 
the  stars  he  looked  rather  than  at  Pauline  Romeyne, 
and  when  he  spoke  he  seemed  to  meditate  aloud.  "I 
was  born,  I  think,  with  the  desire  to  make  beautiful 
books — brave  books  that  would  preserve  the  glories 
of  the  Dream  untarnished,  and  would  re-create  them 
for  battered  people,  and  re-awaken  joy  and  magna- 
nimity." Here  he  laughed,  a  little  ruefully.  "No, 
I  do  not  think  I  can  explain  this  obsession  to  any  one 
who  has  never  suffered  from  it.  But  I  have  never  in 
my  life  permitted  anything  to  stand  in  the  way  of  my 
fulfilling  this  desire  to  serve  the  Dream  by  re-creating 
it  for  others  with  picked  words,  and  that  has  cost  me 
something.  Yes,  the  Dream  is  an  exacting  master. 
My  books,  such  as  they  are,  have  been  made  what 
they  are  at  the  dear  price  of  never  permitting  myself 
to  care  seriously  for  anything  else.  I  might  not  dare 
to  dissipate  my  energies  by  taking  any  part  in  the 
drama  I  was  attempting  to  re-write,  because  I  must 
so  jealously  conserve  all  the  force  that  was  in  me 
for  the  perfection  of  my  lovelier  version.  That  may 
not  be  the  best  way  of  making  books,  but  it  is  the 
only  one  that  was  possible  for  me.  I  had  so  little 
natural  talent,  you  see,"  said  Charteris,  wistfully, 
"and  I  was  anxious  to  do  so  much  with  it.  So  I  had 
always  to  be  careful.  It  has  been  rather  lonely,  my 
dear.  Now,  looking  back,  it  seems  to  me  that  the  part 
I  have  played  in  all  other  people's  lives  has  been  the 
role  of  a  tourist  who  enters  a  cafe  chantant,  a  fortress, 
or  a  cathedral,  with  much  the  same  forlorn  sense  of 

247 


THE     CERTAIN      HOUR 


detachment,  and  observes  what  there  is  to  see  that 
may  be  worth  remembering,  and  takes  a  note  or  two, 
perhaps,  and  then  leaves  the  place  forever.  Yes,  that 
is  how  I  served  the  Dream  and  that  is  how  I  got  my 
books.  They  are  very  beautiful  books,  I  think,  but 
they  cost  me  fifteen  years  of  human  living  and  human 
intimacy,  and  they  are  hardly  worth  so  much." 

He  turned  to  her,  and  his  voice  changed.  "Oh,  I 
was  wrong,  all  wrong,  and  chance  is  kindlier  than  I 
deserve.  For  I  have  wandered  after  unprofitable  gods, 
like  a  man  blundering  through  a  day  of  mist  and  fog, 
and  I  win  home  now  in  its  golden  sunset.  I  have 
laughed  very  much,  my  dear,  but  I  was  never  happy 
until  to-night.  The  Dream,  as  I  now  know,  is  not 
best  served  by  making  parodies  of  it,  and  it  does  not 
greatly  matter  after  all  whether  a  book  be  an  epic 
or  a  directory.  What  really  matters  is  that  there  is 
so  much  faith  and  love  and  kindliness  which  we  can 
share  with  and  provoke  in  others,  and  that  by  cleanly, 
simple,  generous  living  we  approach  perfection  in 
the  highest  and  most  lovely  of  all  arts.  .  .  .  But  you, 
I  think,  have  always  comprehended  this.  My  dear, 
if  I  were  worthy  to  kneel  and  kiss  the  dust  you  tread 
in  I  would  do  it.  As  it  happens,  I  am  not  worthy. 
Pauline,  there  was  a  time  when  you  and  I  were  young 
together,  when  we  aspired,  when  life  passed  as  if 
it  were  to  the  measures  of  a  noble  music — a  heart- 
wringing,  an  obdurate,  an  intolerable  music,  it  might 
be,  but  always  a  lofty  music.  One  strutted,  no  doubt 
— it  was  because  one  knew  oneself  to  be  indomitable 


THE   LADY  OF  ALL  OUR  DREAMS 

Eh,  it  is  true  I  have  won  all  I  asked  of  life,  very  hor- 
ribly true.  All  that  I  asked,  poor  fool!  oh,  I  am 
weary  of  loneliness,  and  I  know  now  that  all  the 
phantoms  I  have  raised  are  only  colorless  shadows 
which  belie  the  Dream,  and  they  are  hateful  to  me. 
I  want  just  to  recapture  that  old  time  we  know  of, 
and  we  two  alone.  I  want  to  know  the  Dream  again, 
Pauline, — the  Dream  which  I  had  lost,  had  half  for- 
gotten, and  have  so  pitifully  parodied.  I  want  to  know 
the  Dream  again,  Pauline,  and  you  alone  can  help  me." 

"Oh,  if  I  could!  if  even  I  could  now,  my  dear!" 
Pauline  Romeyne  left  him  upon  a  sudden,  crying  this. 

And  "So!"  said  Mr.  Charteris. 

He  had  been  deeply  shaken  and  very  much  in  ear- 
nest ;  but  he  was  never  the  man  to  give  for  any  lengthy 
while  too  slack  a  rein  to  emotion ;  and  so  he  now  sat 
down  upon  the  bench  and  lighted  a  cigarette  and 
smiled.  Yet  he  fully  recognized  himself  to  be  the  most 
enviable  of  men  and  an  inhabitant  of  the  most  glorious 
world  imaginable — a  world  wherein  he  very  assuredly 
meant  to  marry  Pauline  Romeyne — say,  in  the  ensuing 
September.  Yes,  that  would  fit  in  well  enough,  al- 
though, of  course,  he  would  have  to  cancel  the  en- 
gagement to  lecture  in  Milwaukee.  .  .  .  How  lucky, 
too,  it  was  that  he  had  never  actually  committed  him- 
self with  Anne  Willoughby!  for  while  money  was  an 
excellent  thing  to  have,  how  infinitely  less  desirable 
it  was  to  live  perked  up  in  golden  sorrow  than  to 
feed  flocks  upon  the  Grampian  Hills,  where  Freedom 
from  the  mountain  height  cried,  "I  go  on  forever,  a 

249 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


prince  can  make  a  belted  knight,  and  let  who  will 
be  clever.  .  .  ." 

" — and  besides,  you'll  catch  your  death  of  cold," 
lamented  Rudolph  Musgrave,  who  was  now  shaking 
Mr.  Charteris*  shoulder. 

"Eh,  what?  Oh,  yes,  .1  daresay  I  was  napping," 
the  other  mumbled.  He  stood  and  stretched  himself 
luxuriously.  "Well,  anyhow,  don't  be  such  an  un- 
mitigated grandmother.  You  see,  I  have  a  bit  of 
rather  important  business  to  attend  to.  Which  way  is 
Miss  Romeyne?" 

"Pauline  Romeyne?  why,  but  she  married  old  Gen- 
eral Ashmeade,  you  know.  She  was  the  gray-haired 
woman  in  purple  who  carried  out  her  squalling  brat 
when  Taylor  was  introducing  you,  if  you  remember. 
She  told  me,  while  the  General  was  getting  the  horses 
around,  how  sorry  she  was  to  miss  your  address,  but 
they  live  three  miles  out,  and  Mrs.  Ashmeade  is  simply 
a  slave  to  the  children.  .  .  .  Why,  what  in  the  world 
have  you  been  dreaming  about  ?" 

"Eh,  what?  Oh,  yes,  I  daresay  I  was  only  nap- 
ping," Mr.  Charteris  observed.  He  was  aware  that 
within  they  were  still  playing  a  riotous  two-step. 


250 


BALLAD  OF  PLAGIARY 
'Frkres  et  maitres,  vous  qui  cultivez" 

PAUL  VERVILLE. 


Hey,  my  masters,  lords  and  brothers,  ye  that  till  the  fields 

of  rhyme, 
Are  ye  deaf  ye  will  not  hearken  to  the  clamor  of  your 

time? 

Still  ye  blot  and  change  and  polish — vary,  heighten  and 

transpose — 
Old  sonorous  metres  marching  grandly  to  their  tranquil 

close. 

Ye  have  toiled  and  ye  have  fretted ;  ye  attain  perfected 

speech : 
Ye  have  nothing  new  to  utter  and  but  platitudes  to 

preach. 

And  your  rhymes  are  all  of  loving,  as  within  the  old 

days  when 
Love  was  lord  of  the  ascendant  in  the  horoscopes  of 

men. 

251 


THE     CERTAIN     HOUR 


Still  ye  make  of  love  the  utmost  end  and  scope  of  i 

your  art; 
And,  more  blind  than  he  you  write  of,  note  not  wh 

a  modest  part 

Loving  now  may  claim  in  living,  when  we  have  sea 

time  to  spare, 
Who  are  plundering  the  sea-depths,  taking  tribute  < 

the  air, — 

Whilst  the  sun  makes  pictures  for  us;  since  to-day,  I 

good  or  ill, 
Earth  and  sky  and  sea  are  harnessed,  and  the  lightnin 

work  our  will. 

Hey,  my  masters,  all  these  love-songs  by  dust-hidd< 

mouths  were  sung 
That    ye    mimic    and    re-echo    with    an    artful-artle 

tongue, — 

Sung  by  poets  close  to  nature,  free  to  touch  her  ga 

ments'  hem 
Whom  to-day  ye  know  not  truly;  for  ye  only  co] 

them. 

Them  ye  copy — copy  always,  with  your  backs  turn< 

to  the  sun, 
Caring  not  what  man  is  doing,  noting  that  which  nu 

has  done. 

We  are  talking  over  telephones,  as  Shakespeare  cou 

not  talk; 
We  are  riding  out  in  motor-cars  where  Homer  had 

walk; 
252 


BALLAD     OF     PLAGIARY 

And  pictures  Dante  labored  on  of  medi&val  Hell 
The  nearest  cinematograph  paints  quicker,  and  as  well. 

But  ye  copy,  copy  always; — and  ye  marvel  when  ye 

find 
This  new  beauty,  that  new  meaning, — while  a  model 

stands  behind, 

Waiting,  young  and  fair  as  ever,  till  some  singer  turn 

and  trace 
Something  of  the  deathless  wonder  of  life  lived  in  any 

place. 

Hey,  my  masters,  turn  from  piddling  to  the  turmoil  and 

the  strife! 
Cease  from  sonneting,  my  brothers ;  let  us  fashion  songs 

from  life. 

Thus  I  wrote  ere  Percie  passed  me.  .  .  .  Then  did  I 
epitomise 

All  life's  beauty  in  one  poem,  and  make  haste  to  eulo- 
gise 

Quite  the  fairest  thing  life  boasts  of,  for  I  wrote  of 
Percie*s  eyes. 


EXPLICIT  DEC  AS   POETARUM 


253 


THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  SANTA  CRUZ 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  DATE  stamped  below. 


50m-12,'70(Pl251s8)2373-3A,l 


TORED  AT  NRLF 


PS3505.A153C4  1920 


3  2106  00209  3885 


